I received a couple of phone calls on August 11th early in the afternoon that the Mayor of Orange was served court papers about the city of Orange County Committee. I contacted Councilman Rayfield Morton, Councilwoman Tency Eason and Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr.
The mayor's attorney Eldridge Hawkins, Sr., statement reads as follows:
"It is difficult to respond to Councilpersons Morton's and Eason's alleged complaint as I am not convinced that the so called complaint was properly filed by their attorney Pat Rivera as it is lacking a required cover sheet and attorney's signature. In addition, Mayor Hawkins has not been legally served a summons and complaint as he was never served personally. Though papers were left at City Hall, this does not constitute legal service on an individual. So, it is very possible that a valid lawsuit does not even exist at this time. Due to previous legal rulings during the Litigation to overturn the last County Committee Chairmanship Election of Mayor Hawkins, wherein bylaws were voided by a NJ Superior Court Judge, I was asked to be present at the County Committee meeting as Counsel to the Committee to ensure that the election was run in conformance with due process and equal protection mandates. I am confident that the election was in compliance. Though I will not try this case in the press, I do hope that should a legal complaint be properly filed and served and we prevail in any subsequent proceedings, that Local Talk will give us similar coverage to that which you have given to this alleged "complaint".
More specifically, the following are the allegations and then, the facts:
1a) Mr. Eldridge Hawkins, Sr. Esq., was allowed into the meeting as Chairman, Eldridge Hawkins Jr's Counsel.
1b) Untrue, Attorney Eldridge Hawkins, Sr., was asked to be Counsel to the Orange Democratic Committee, a position to which he was duly appointed and attended the meeting in that capacity.
2a) Mayor Hawkins Chief of Staff, Tai Cooper, was allowed into the room where the election was held and where only elected Committee members were allowed to be present.
2b) Partially true, Tai Cooper indeed was allowed into the room because neither Neil Cohen, the Executive Officer of Orange Democratic Committee nor the Police at the door, understood that the Mayor's Chief of Staff should not be present. As soon as the Mayor - Chairman saw her, he directed her to leave.
3a) Neil Cohen, was not an elected County Committee person and should not have been allowed in the room.
3b) While it is true that Neil Cohen is not a Democratic Committee member, he is however, the Executive Officer to the Orange Democratic Committee who was present at the direction of the Chairman to make sure only the elected District Leaders were allowed inside. He was also present to assist with the voting procedures. This was all done to avoid the total confusion that was present at the last Committee election.
4a) Tai Cooper was seen drafting ballots.
4b) After the election for Chairman took place, Ms Cooper, outside the election room, created additional ballots after the printed ballots ran out.
5a) Because the ballots were numbered, people would know, who voted for whom.
5b) The ballots were not handed out in any order. Paper ballots are numbered at the polls to prevent fraud. The same applies to the county committee balloting.
It was important to know that only 34 voters voted and only elected committee representatives voted. While the ballots were numbered, there was no record or knowledge of to which committee member a particular ballot was given.
This was with one exception. One elected committee person, upon seeing a number on her ballot, crumbled it up, did not turn it in and demanded a non-numbered ballot which was given to her. To protect all parties from false allegations, upon advice of counsel, a corner of said destroyed original ballot with the number thereon was saved. It should be noted that several participants removed the numbers from their ballots prior to depositing their votes.
6a) There were no rules by which the election and meeting were conducted.
6b) The Bylaws of the Orange Democratic Committee had been declared invalid by a New Jersey Superior Court Judge. This was the primary reason for the Chairman's appointment and request of counsel to make sure everything was legally correct. It goes without saying, that, an invalid set of Bylaws cannot be relied upon for any purposes as was done by Patricia Rivera, Esq. Counsel for the Morton team. Thus, one of the Chairman's first acts was to institute an Executive Order, creating a seven person Sub-Committee to create and vote on a set of Bylaws, which will govern until the "Committee as a whole" may thoroughly research and determine the issue.
Eldridge Hawkins, Jr.'s lawyer's function was based upon due process and equal protection and even a required appearance of propriety, since there were not rules. It was pointed out that attorney Eldridge Hawkins, Sr. ruled against the interest of his son's line, when he ruled that a District Leader must be present to cast her vote for a candidate when that candidate's position was up for consideration. The District Leader had to leave for personal reasons and it was quite obvious that the Chairman's choices for those positions after that District Leader left, was missing that District Leader's vote.
7a) The forced arrangement of the seating interfered with the orderly voting process.
7b) There could not be anything further from the truth. The required seating of District Leaders at their own ward tables makes it easily clear who was present to vote and who indeed voted when each wards table was called to cast their ballots. It prevented persons from one ward casting votes for someone from another ward.
It was very obvious that Morton, Eason and their team were very disturbed about the outcome of the election for Chairman. It is hoped that they can put aside their personal disappointments and have their elected officers together with Chairman, Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. join a united effort to benefit the Democratic Party, its representatives and the Citizens of Orange Township."
Statement by Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. - "There is no question in my mind that the Orange Democratic Chairman's selection was run legally and fairly. I am confident that we will prevail in this frivolous litigation. It is unfortunate that Councilman Morton can neither accept defeat nor respect the will of the District Leaders who cast their votes to decide who would lead the Democratic Party Councilman Morton is following the same misguided game plan that Councilwoman Eason followed two years ago when she went to court trying to unseat me as chairman and failed. Let Councilman Morton play his political games. He ultimately cannot override the will of the Democratic voters. We need to move beyond Councilman Morton's desperate move and focus on bringing resources to Orange for residents in need. And, should Councilman Morton win his long-shot suit, it would only trigger a new county committee meeting in which I would again have the votes to win. It is a shame that valuable time must be wasted on such nonsense."
Subscribe to this comment's feed
