Charles Cuccia and Tony Luna should pay back the Lodi
taxpayers the tens of thousands of dollars they took to appeal their personal
fines.
The OPRA response shows that there was NO resolution
from the mayor and council for this very special and very secretive arrangement
for Cuccia and Luna.
The OPRA response shows that there was NO contract with Mary McDonnell to appeal the personal fine of Charles Cuccia. There was NO contract with "Florio" to appeal the personal fine of Tony Luna. I was specifically looking to see
if the borough set any limits on the amount to be spent. No contracts.
No limits.
An insurance carrier is not covering the costs because
appealing personal fines is not covered by any indemnification ordinances for government
employees.
This is not a civil action where Cuccia and Luna are
named in a lawsuit against the Borough. This is a not a criminal proceeding (even
though it probably should be). This isn’t
even for a proceeding before the Local Finance Board. That already came and went and was kept from
the public. This is where the Local Finance
Board fined Charles Cuccia and Tony Luna personally for their blatant ethics
violations. Instead of paying $1,200 and
$1,000 in personal fines, Cuccia and Luna are spending tens of thousands of
Lodi tax dollars to appeal those fines. They are getting away with it because Scott Luna is the mayor.
The most “liberal”
interpretation of the ordinance would not allow tax dollars to be spent for
Charles Cuccia who is now listed as the “petitioner”
and not the “respondent”. Link to an
ordinance finally turned over by the Borough:
Who specifically from the Borough arranged this for Cuccia and Luna? How could this arrangement benefit the
Borough in any way? How is a personal
fine the borough’s business?
This is a misappropriation of public funds. There is a reason why the Scott Luna administration
did everything possible to hide the fines and the legal payments from the
public. There is a reason they changed their
virtual meeting policy to make it more difficult to submit questions. There is a reason why Emil Carafa in his
dramatic fashion waived his arms so nobody would disclose the Tony Luna/Charles
Cuccia fines to the public.
This corrupt arrangement was taking place during the last council Election. It's really sad how it was kept from the public.
It's sad that there are no real newspaper reporters covering Lodi anymore. Instead of covering real stories like this, Katie Sobko has been reduced to writing about the social media pages of a Hasbrouck Heights mayor and board of ed trustee.
