ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
01-2-5164 Scoblink-O’Neill v. The Local Finance Board, Department of Community Affairs, App. Div. (per curiam) ( 9 pp.) Appellant challenges the decision of the Local Finance Board dismissing her complaint that the then–mayor of Haddon Heights violated the Local Government Ethics Law by proposing for appointment as borough solicitor an attorney who was then representing, and who continued to represent, the mayor in a private family law matter. The panel affirms, finding that none of the situations described in Wyzykowski v. Rizas as precluded by N.J.S.A. 40A:9-22.5(d) were implicated, the LFB correctly determined that, on the record before it, the relationship between counsel and the mayor was too tenuous to support a violation of N.J.S.A. 40A:9-44.5(d) as the attorney’s appointment was made by the borough council which also reviewed and approved his invoices without any vote by the mayor, and nothing in the record remotely suggests that the private family law matter that arose between the mayor and his former wife affected or implicated any public interest pertaining to the municipality.
