Courier-Post
May 5, 2011
Cappelli turns heads indeed
A mind-numbing announcement from April 26: Camden County Freeholder-Director Louis Cappelli Jr. was selected the New Jersey Conference of Mayors' "Freeholder of the Year."
Really?
This would be the same Louis Cappelli Jr. whose tax issues have made headlines? The same Louis Cappelli Jr. whose big consolidation plans have gone nowhere?
In 2010, Cappelli's back property taxes topped out around $29,000, or several thousand dollars more than the Woodbury law firm partner's freeholder salary.
As of Wednesday, Cappelli and his estranged wife, Jacqueline, owe $13,400 total on a pair of Collingswood properties, municipal records show. On Dec. 17, those properties -- a Browning Road home and Haddon Avenue office -- were purchased by lien holding LLCs at the borough's annual tax sale.
Freeholder Cappelli couldn't be reached Wednesday.
In an April 6 statement he said, "The property taxes issue results from a situation in a divorce . . . It should be resolved by the end of the month" (April).
Cappelli should have to pay his taxes before being eligible for re-election this year.
Before announcing a countywide police and fire department in mid-January, Cappelli e-mailed all 37 mayors in Camden County alerting them to the plan and "suggesting" they voice their support for consolidation efforts to the public and inquiring reporters.
That attempted message control offended many mayors. As did Cappelli's statement at a March press conference with Gov. Chris Christie touting the consolidation plans.
"We can create efficiencies with a police or fire department if it's one community or 20," he said.
That left local officials wondering if Cappelli thinks they don't have the ability to run their towns.
While other counties, such as Somerset, have been studying the idea for more than a year and completed feasibility studies, Camco has yet to do anything purposeful.
When county officials introduced the plan, Cappelli said a consolidated force could be up and running within three months. In late March, he said it would launch in four to six months, but he couldn't confirm when any details of the plan might be released.
Since then, police and fire consolidation committees consisting of local officials and public safety authorities have accomplished nothing.
This isn't the first time a bold Cappelli plan has fizzled. In June 2010, his freeholder board approved a contract with corrections officers after Cappelli and company spent a year touting a privatization plan to overcome problems at the overcrowded and aging jail in downtown Camden.
County officials pressed their case, in part, with a flurry of press releases from elected officials who said a new jail with private operators would save money. In turn, union members and other labor groups staged protests and argued the change would threaten public safety.
In the end, all the hype about county jail privatization forced the union into concessions.
By pushing countywide police and fire, Cappelli and company may be looking for similar results in the county's most dangerous city, Camden, which laid off 235 police officers and firefighters in January.
Cappelli has been a freeholder since 2003. The county lists his accomplishments as: a police and fire plan, his spearheading of a 911 dispatch upgrade and enhancing communications among municipalities.
But the county budget has been a shambles under his watch. Last month, the county laid off 260 workers in the face of a $43 million budget deficit.
That's hundreds more layoffs than any other county since January 2010, according to the state Civil Service Commission, which approves government layoff plans.
Executives of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors didn't return calls to explain why Cappelli won their annual honor.
Little wonder. Any freeholder you can name is probably more worthy.