Harold Wiener
IRVINGTON, NJ — As quiet as it is kept, Irvington has a great resource in Municipal Clerk Harold Wiener.
Wiener records and administers Municipal Council meetings; works municipal and statewide elections; certifies election results; keeps track of lawsuits against the town, employees or elected officials; and a whole host of other activities to keep accurate, up-to-date records of the goings on in Irvington.
The most recent high-profile case Wiener was involved in regarded the attempt by Irvington Joint Block Association Coalition President Elouise McDaniel and three others to certify a letter of intent to recall Mayor Tony Vauss, so they could proceed with the initiative. Vauss and the township attorney objected to the language in the letter and eventually hired a lawyer for Wiener, after the group sued Wiener for refusing to certify the recall application.
McDaniel’s group eventually won their case and had their letter of intent certified, but there was never any admission of wrongdoing or impropriety on Wiener’s part or anybody in his office.
Because Wiener is a certified master clerk with the state, he has a vast amount of knowledge pertinent to many legal issues.
A case in point was when Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren and Willis Edwards, his former deputy business administrator, recently cited Ordinance No. 25-85 to justify Edwards being appointed to the position — even after the majority of City Council voted against Edwards — following the mayor’s appointment of Edwards as acting B.A. in 2012, this appointment was questioned by former Orange South Ward Councilman and Orange City Council President Bill Lewis.
“If there is an ordinance, it would be codified in the Orange Municipal Code Book, which is updated periodically through the city clerk,” Lewis said Tuesday, Sept. 22. “It’s in one binder. It contains all the statutes that relate to this municipality.”
Lewis said he has a personal copy of the Orange Code Book and the ordinance is not in it. He said that makes him believe it does not exist or, if it did exist, it is no longer in effect, so Warren and Edwards should never have cited it to justify Edwards’ as the deputy business administrator.
Calls to the Orange City Clerk’s Office seeking to determine if Lewis was right about the ordinance were referred to the Orange Attorney’s Office.
According to city attorney Dan Smith in a statement to the Irvington Herald on Tuesday, Sept. 29, Ordinance No. 25-85 “does exist. It is valid. And there’s nothing to indicate it has been repealed, superseded or invalidated.”
According to Wiener, it is possible for an active ordinance not to be listed in a Municipal Code Book. He also said, just because it’s not in the Municipal Code Book does not mean that it is not active, relevant and in effect.
Wiener said the main reason why an applicable ordinance might not be listed in a city or town’s code book has to do with expenses and the codification company that municipalities use to keep codes up to date. He said, “In the agreement with the codification company, there may be certain ordinances that are not included in the code.”
“Typical would be bond ordinances and salary ordinances,” Wiener said on Monday, Sept. 28. It’s really a cost-saving measure. It becomes costly to constantly update those kinds of ordinances from year to year.”