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Date Posted: 22:40:52 02/11/03 Tue
Author: talkonline-COPIED FROM THE BERGEN RECORD,link @ hh.com to North jersey .com stories
Subject: more "stuff"

Sports authority board brings two empty seats to the table

Sunday, February 9, 2003

By JOHN BRENNAN
Staff Writer



The absence of Meadowlands-area members isn't the only quirk in the usually anonymous board of directors for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

For instance, the board has 14 seats but only 12 members. All members are unsalaried, but are entitled to recoup expenses.

The vacancies were created when the 14th seat was added in 2001 - and never filled - and by the departure of Republican Peter Sudler, whose term expired last year.

Governor McGreevey nominated Fred Potter, an Ocean County Democratic leader, for one of the vacant seats in December, but the nomination has been held up by Sens. Leonard Connors and Bob Singer - both Ocean Republicans.

The two are granted such power as home-county senators under the chamber's courtesy rules.

Asked recently if Potter could be advanced in time to participate in the crucial board vote, Singer paused and said, "Anything can happen."

McGreevey has not yet nominated a 14th member, waiting instead for action on Potter's nomination.

Eleven of the 14 seats are set aside for members of the public, who are appointed for four years by the governor. The other three seats are reserved for automatic members who serve by virtue of their official positions.

The NJSEA president (currently George Zoffinger), a representative of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (Susan Bass Levin, the agency's chairwoman), and the state treasurer (John E. McCormac) are the automatic members.

The empty seats leave the board evenly split between Republican and Democratic appointees.

Former NJSEA Chairman Joseph Buckelew - a Republican - has worked closely with Zoffinger for the past year, however, and several board members said they didn't expect an arena redevelopment vote to go strictly along party lines.

The three public members appointed by McGreevey in 2002 - Joseph Forgione, Marvin Schmelzer, and board Chairman Carl Goldberg - all have extensive real estate backgrounds, as does Zoffinger. Those four make up the selection committee, and presumably would give the recommended choice four of the seven votes it needs for the board's endorsement.

On the Republican side, Vice Chairwoman Candy Straight is an investment banker who ran unsuccessfully in November for Essex County executive, and Raymond H. Bateman ran against Brendan Byrne in the New Jersey gubernatorial race in 1977. Most of the other appointees have little experience in public office.

Former Olympic track star Joetta Clark Diggs is the daughter of former Paterson's Eastside High School Principal Joe Clark. Barbara Sobel and her husband, Clifford, have been among the leading donors to the New Jersey Republican Party.

Board members serve four-year terms and can be reappointed an unlimited number of times.

"We've had important votes before, but nothing of this magnitude," Bateman said of the arena redevelopment vote. "This is uncharted territory."

*************************************************************the story @ hh.com that led me to this writer at the Bergen Record who covers NJSEA news,says that local (Bergen County Democrats),wrote to McGreevy asking that Barbra Sobel be dismissed from the board because she does not live in the United States. They (local Dems),also wrote (according to the latest),asking that the seat be filled by a local (North Jersey) resident.

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