Drive through Marlboro Township now, a few days after the
guilty plea, and the place finally begins to make some sense.
The township's former mayor admitted Tuesday that he had been
taking bribes for a decade to push building projects in Marlboro.
And these were not small bribes, like the cash-stuffed envelopes
that corrupt flunkies in Hudson County settled for. This mayor
took $245,000, enough money to support his younger second
wife in style.
What did Marlboro get out of this?
It got reamed.
To see one example, turn off Route 34 into Woodcliff Estates,
one of the six developments that were dutifully pushed by
the corrupt former mayor, Matthew Scannapieco.
You can see right away that the bribe was an absolute necessity.
Because no sane government would approve a project like this
on its merits.
Our tour guide on this day was the current mayor, Robert Kleinberg,
a transplant from Brooklyn who is determined to stop the sprawl.
Kleinberg noted how the 306 homes were packed tight to maximize
the profits on each acre. They are placed too close to the
street. And some are built on steep slopes that almost guarantee
erosion into nearby wetlands.
"We're going to have to live with the effects of this
corruption for years and years," Kleinberg said. "They
did a lot of damage."
The sprawl epidemic has hit Marlboro with a ferocity that
is rare, even in New Jersey's outer suburbs.
Traffic is a nightmare. Property taxes have nearly doubled
since 1990. The schools are overcrowded. And the open fields
and thick woods that drew people here in the first place are
disappearing.
Now it's clear why the township allowed this to happen.
And few people believe this plague is limited to the the six
big projects listed in the indictment of the former mayor.
The FBI is still in town. And more indictments are a near-certainty.
Ellen Karcher, now a state senator, suspects that bribery
played a decisive role in shaping Marlboro.
When she took her seat on the township council in 2002, she
was asked almost immediately to approve a change in the master
plan that would rezone open land near the airport for dense
senior housing, a move that would greatly increase the land's
value.
"I asked how this master plan was developed, and the
mayor said we went to the builders and asked them what they
wanted," she says. "I was just stunned."
Karcher began asking questions, not knowing that the mayor
had already accepted a bribe of $100,000 to push the rezoning.
She was at the site one day when an associate of the mayor's
walked up and threatened her.
"You better watch out what questions you're asking,"
he said. "Or you'll wind up in the trunk of one of these
cars."
Days later, she received an unsolicited gift in the mail:
A free grave site at the local cemetery. And a spot for her
husband, too.
That was enough for Karcher. She said she went to the FBI,
wore a wire, and caught this same official on tape offering
her a $150,000 bribe. The man, Richard Vuola, is now awaiting
trial on bribery and weapons charges.
Marlboro still has its open fields and its woods. The average
home sells for nearly $500,000, and the average family earns
more than $100,000. You have to believe the town will right
itself, especially now that the FBI has sunk its teeth in.
But there is no getting around the damage that's been done.
When Scannapieco pleaded guilty on Tuesday, Kleinberg was
overjoyed. He moved to Marlboro 20 years ago to escape Brooklyn's
congestion, and he ran for mayor to put on the brakes on new
building.
"This has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans,"
he says. "This has to do with the third party in Marlboro
-- the political insiders, the attorneys, the engineers, the
builders, the developers. When the campaigns were over, they'd
appoint each other to these boards. That's why we had so much
corruption."
For him, the former mayor's guilty plea was vindication.
"I wait for this for so long," he said. "I
felt like it was Christmas morning."
But since then, a numbing realization has sunk in: He can
try to save what land is left, but he can't undo the damage
that's been done.
"When I got here, it had a country atmosphere,"
he said. "Now, it's like a city. My challenge as mayor
is to pick up the pieces."
