Coincidences?

April 12, 2021 – In 2016, the Holmdel Planning Board denied an application due to flooding concerns for the development of a property located next to Palm Square Condominium on Palmer Ave near Target. A year later, in 2017, that same property was included in Holmdel’s Affordable Housing Plan.

Interestingly, it has now come to light recently that the developer of that property has donated $3,000 (in two separate donations by father and son) to then-Deputy Mayor Pat Impreveduto’s campaign in his bid for election as Monmouth County Freeholder (now known as Commissioner). A review of the political contribution history showed that the developer has made no other contributions to any other election campaign in Holmdel or Monmouth County over a period of 30 years except for the $3,000 donations in 2017, the year that the developer’s property was included in Holmdel’s Affordable Housing Plan. Coincidence?

Something else also popped up when reviewing the donation history. Also in 2017, at the October 10th TC meeting, the Township Engineer T&M Associates was awarded the job to digitalize Holmdel’s tax map for $160,000, without a “request for proposal” to get competitive bids from other firms. Two weeks after that TC meeting, the election records show that T&M Associates donated the maximum allowable amount of $2,600 to Impreveduto’s election campaign account, the same campaign account that received the $3,000 donations from the Palmer Ave developer. This, again, may be a coincidence but the timing is also very interesting.

Fast forward to 2021.

At the last Holmdel Township Committee meeting, there was a discussion of one, possibly two, donation(s) for scoreboard(s) at Phillips Park. Based on the exchanges that occurred at that TC meeting, there were some issues that the Township Attorney did not want to discuss in the public session.

The agenda for tomorrow’s TC was released last Friday afternoon. Based on that agenda, some issues are now coming to light. There is a resolution in the Consent Agenda indicating that the scoreboard donation offer may be coming from Impreveduto’s campaign account. The resolution accepting the scoreboard donation is conditioned on Impreveduto obtaining an opinion from New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission (“ELEC”) that the donation is a permissible use of campaign funds.

In addition to the condition above, the donation was also subject to listing his name and his former elected title on the scoreboard, effectively making it a “political sign” on Township property. The resolution accepting the donation made it clear that no title of elected office would be listed.

It was recently announced that Pat Impreveduto’s son will be running for Holmdel Township Committee. The timing of the scoreboard donation by Impeveduto, shortly before his son’s election bid announcement, from a campaign fund that received (a) donations from the developer of a property that Holmdel residents at Palmer Square Condominium are up in arms over and (b) the maximum allowable donation from a professional firm that seems to have the appearance of pay-to-play is certainly very interesting, to say the least.

Stay tuned. The next Township Committee meeting is tomorrow night!