Councilman Rice believes Rone should stay on council

“According to the Star-Ledger, Prosecutor Paula Dow now wants the court to enact a state statute requiring officials who have been convicted to forfeit public office.”

Just to clarify, Prosecutor Paula Dow appears to be making an application to Order Forfeiture of Public Office pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C: 51-2(B)(2) based upon the Attorney General’s guidelines promulgated in response to James Flagg v. Essex County Prosecutor, 171 N.J. 561 (2002). In doing so I presume Ms. Dow will submit a written Statement of Reasons why her office declined to seek a waiver of forfeiture pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C: 51-2(e). Hence, Councilman Rice’s accusation that Ms. Dow’s action is politically motivated is unfounded, as Ms. Dow appears to be merely doing her job in applying the statute.

I think it would be foolish of Counselwoman Rone to have her attorney Raymond Hamlin argue that she is being singled out for special treatment compared to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy or Newark's Police Director McCarthy. The fact is the Statute is pretty straight forward and Rone’s only hope is to argue that Ms. Dow failed to seek an application for Waivor of forfeiture.

It is unlikely that the Essex County Assignment Judge will be convinced that a Booker lead conspiracy motivated Ms Dow’s application. The fact remains that Rone screwed-up and still to this day does not appear to realize what she did wrong. We are a government of laws not men or woman and we must let law enforcement do their job as objectively as possible. In other words, we can not have well-connected drivers willfully breaking the law knowing that if they get pulled over for driving infractions that they can merely place a phone call to their relative (or pull out a PBA card) to avoid the consequences of their actions.

If Counselwoman Rone could have realize this aspect of her offense she might have convinced Ms. Dow to seek an Application for Waiver of Forfeiture instead of the pending application.
http://www.state.nj.us/oag/dcj/agguide/waiverofforfeiture.pdf (See page 9 for factors).
As I read N.J.S.A. 2C: 51-2(e) together with Flagg (as well as the AG guidelines) appears to be support granting a wavier if the offensive conduct is realized and discontinued. However, Rone appears to have subsume the arrogance of her office, which like Zulima Farber will lead to her downfall.

I am a big supporter of Rone and Rice as independents on the Counsel. Moreover, I am very impressed by Rone’s commitment to the Central Ward as head of numerous programs in support of Central Ward residents,children and senior citizens. In addition, Counselwoman Rone has for years prior to taking office been an advocate for low income housing and other issues affecting the poor.

Accordingly, Counselwoman Rone’s should accept what she did is wrong and step down. In five years she apply for an expungement of her disorderly person offense which will remove any impediments to running for office thereafter.