A group of Neptune property owners withdrew their petition seeking a referendum to repeal the township’s new rent control ordinance after the discovery that a number of signatures on the petition may have been forged.

Blaming a vendor retained to collect the signatures, a representative of the group said today that they would refer the matter to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Members of the Township Committee [pictured above] initially raised the issue at their Monday night meeting when they announced that their review of the signatures indicated forgeries. Mayor Eric Houghtaling said the township also would refer the matter to the Prosecutor’s Office.

The petition itself is non-binding on the committee, who declined to place a question on the November ballot repealing the rent control measure.

However, the petition was presented the same as those used in municipalities that allow petition-initiated referendums on the ballot, and included sworn statements by petition circulators that the signatures were valid. Neptune does not allow such petition-initiated referendums.

At the Monday committee meeting, a public hearing was held on an amendment to the initial rent control ordinance passed in August that covers Ocean Grove and Neptune Township. The amendment increases the exemption from two to four rental units for multi-family structures subject to rent control. That amendment passed 5-0.

During the public hearing, committee members alerted Ron Simoncini — who leads the effort to organize the anti-rent control campaign with a group of local property owners — of the alleged forgeries.

Simoncini is a communications specialist at Axiom Communications, a Secaucus NJ-based public relations firm. He is also a representative of the NJ Apartment Association. His company in good faith contracted a consulting firm to gather signatures for the now-withdrawn petition, Simoncini said.

Township residents Jack Green, Richard Hogan, Cindy Nelson, Raymond Huizenga and Valerie Green are the committee of petitioners listed on the petition, according to Simoncini.

After the petition was brought to the Township Clerk’s office, Houghtaling looked at the signatures on the petition. Noting that those who collected the signatures were able to obtain three to five signatures from consecutive houses within certain blocks of the township, Houghtaling thought something was amiss, he said. So he decided to do some leg work of his own.

“I’m the mayor here, part of my job is to knock on doors,” he said.

Houghtaling proceeded to go door-to-door himself, knocking on “at least 100” doors of several houses where individuals that signed the petition lived, he said. His research produced residents who said they did not sign the petition, several residents who had moved away and in three instances the petitioners had passed away, he said.

“Now, I’m not saying every name is forged but of the houses I went to, no one signed it,” he said.

Another member of the committee also said the petition appeared to have obvious problems.

“It looks like someone took a voter registration list in the Gables and Hamilton Gardens sections and simply wrote down the names of people living in homes — that is what it appears to look like,” said Committeewoman Mary Beth Jahn.

“It was so symmetrical in the way they gathered signatures,” she said. “[They listed] every single address, one side of the street and the other side of the street.”

Committeeman Kevin McMillan, who voted in favor of rent control, was listed among those who signed the anti-rent control petition along with several members of his household, Jahn said.

“In the 25 years I have been opposing rent control, I have never had anything remotely like this happen,” Simoncini said. “I think there was a problem with the circulators that were hired to do this. They came from a very well-respected firm and were to have followed a process that required notarizations.”

While Simoncini believes the vast majority of signatures on the petition were legitimate, his only option was to withdraw the petition, he said.

“One forgery is too many — you have no other option to withdraw,” he said. Much like his submission of the petition was largely symbolic, so is his withdrawal, he said.

“This didn’t go wrong in my office, I assure you that. I’m going to have to prove that. Because I certainly don’t want to suffer as a result of someone else’s misdeeds.”

In withdrawing the petition, Simoncini submitted a letter to the committee on behalf of the Neptune Property Owners. The Neptune Township Committee also issued a release Tuesday on the township’s Facebook page.

The full text of the both the  Simoncini letter and township release read as follows, respectively:

I am writing to address the subject of the Committee meeting last night and to provide some information to the governing body and the residents regarding our efforts on behalf of the Neptune Property Owners relating to the rent control issue.

Neptune Property Owners was organized for the purpose of advocating for property rights and is opposing the institution of rent control.  We believe that the residents of Neptune are generally opposed to rent control because it has been repeatedly proven to be counterproductive to sound housing policy, promoting affordable housing or otherwise improving the availability of high quality dwelling space.  To demonstrate this, we hired a political consulting firm to collect signatures on petitions requesting that Neptune offer a ballot question on the matter.

As the sponsor of this effort, Neptune Property Owners sought what it believed to be an ethical and reputable firm to perform this work and entrusted the process of signature collection to experienced professionals who came highly recommended.  Even though we knew that Neptune was under no statutory obligation to regard such a petition as a  legal document, we instructed the retained firm to collect signatures consistent with election standards applicable to Faulkner Act communities.  Among other requirements, we requested that each be notarized, swearing the circulator to verification that they had collected the signatures.

We received and then submitted these petitions based upon specific assurances from our vendor that these standards had been met.  We learned tonight at your Committee Meeting that our vendor’s work in securing signatures to the petition was not in keeping with the requirements for this work.  Because of this the Neptune Property Owners can no longer stand behind the submission of the petition.  Of course, had we known that the standards we required had not been met, we would not have submitted the petitions and used them in support of our position.

It is with deep regret the Neptune Property Owners withdraw the petitions.  Notwithstanding this unfortunate incident, the importance of the rent control issue to the Neptune community mandates that we continue to urge the Committee to avoid the counterproductive results that will be produced by the ordinance.  We agree with the sentiment expressed at the Committee Meeting that improprieties in the collection and/or notarizations of the petitions should be fully investigated.  If it is determined that fraud or forgeries occurred, the responsible parties should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  We therefore are referring the matter to the Monmouth County Prosecutor.

The Neptune Township Committee’s release follows. The Sun corrected the date that was listed erroneously in the first sentence:

The petition sponsored by the Neptune Property Owners PAC seeks to repeal rent stabilization. In a letter dated September 6, 2013 Mr. Rob Simoncini, the President of Neptune Property Owners PAC transmitted a corrected letter for an earlier submitted petition stating that, “we gathered 1,408 signatures.”

In an earlier press release Mr. Simoncini stated that 80% of those presented the petition readily signed. The petition was presented with signed and notarized signature pages for the Township’s consideration.

In a discussion at the Monday meeting on the resolution naming the members of the Rent Stabilization Board it was stated by the Township Committee that there had been difficulty finding a landlord willing to participate on the board. Mr. Simoncini chastised the governing body saying that they (the PAC) were never contacted about interested parties though he represented the five largest landlords in Neptune Township. However, when asked, Mr. Simoncini was unable to name them: the landlords.

Potential issues about the validity of the petition signatures came to light when Pastor Paul Brown of First Pentecostal Church in Neptune, NJ addressed the dais to inquire about a petition he understood had been presented to Township. He had knowledge that his name appeared on the petition though he had no knowledge of the petition and advised the Committee that the name of a neighbor’s son who had moved to California three years ago also appeared. This revelation was followed by a number of other residents who also had allegedly signed the petition addressing the committee and in many cases examining a copy of their alleged signatures on a copy of the petition at the dais.

Mayor Eric J. Houghtaling of Neptune Township stated that he had reviewed the petition and personally contacted approximately 100 households whose names, addresses and signatures were on the notarized sheets. Of these 50 visits only one had actually signed the petition. Also, in a subsequent addendum to the original petition, 88 more signatures were presented. These 88 contained duplicate names and addresses however the signatures differed from the ones in the first submission. The complete petition contained signatures of residents who had passed away, additional individuals who had moved, a vacant house, as well as the alleged signature of Committeeman Kevin McMillan of the Township Committee who had seconded the ordinance for rent stabilization.

In addressing the issue Mayor Houghtaling stated that, “This petition is an insult and disrespectful of this Township and its residents. This action makes a mockery of the processes of democracy as well as being illegal.” The Township Attorney, Gene Anthony, advised the Mayor that forgery is a Third Degree offense may be subject to incarceration.

The Mayor with consent of the full Township Committee has advised the Municipal Clerk to turn over a copy of this petition to Mr. Anthony who has been instructed to forward it with a list of known forgeries to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office for investigation.

Local Neptune business sponsors of the petition listed were Jack and Valerie Green of Green Real Estate; Cindy Nelson of Oliver Brothers Realtors, Ray Huizenga of Century 21 Coastal Realtors and Richard Hogan, Esq.

For further information please contact Vito Gadaleta, Business Administrator Neptune Township (732-988-5200 x232).

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