Gillespie says claims amount to hypocrisy Council prez. notes that Panos violated election law in '01 BY JESSICA SMITH Staff Writer OLD BRIDGE - In the face of claims by Councilwoman Lucille Panos that the council is circumventing its pay-to-play ordinance, Council President Pat Gillespie said it is Panos who has not obeyed campaign finance laws. "She broke the law and is now just making baseless accusations against others, and that's just wrong," Gillespie, a Democrat, said of the Republican Panos. "This is just brazen hypocrisy on her part." Gillespie made reference to Panos' 2001 campaign, when she was fined $286 by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) for filing her final candidate-sworn statement disclosing campaign contributions 393 days late. NJELEC filed a complaint against Panos for violating the state Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Reporting Act. "It was an error," Panos said. "I'm just shocked that they are going to bring up something from five years ago because they have to reach for something." Gillespie begged to differ. "That's a lame excuse, for someone now to present themselves as the champion of campaign finance reform when they ignored the most basic element of the current law, which is public disclosure. Error or not, every person who runs for office gets notified of all the requirements." Panos said her total contributions for that campaign, which was her first run for council, totaled less than $2,000, and she was not familiar with the requirements of filing the closing form. Unlike other council members who have large-scale campaigns, she said, hers was modest, and she had nothing to hide by her late filing of the form. "They get hundreds of thousands of dollars from big contributors who get jobs up and down the state," Panos said of the Democrats. "They have accountants doing their campaign books. I was just a regular person. I was not involved politically." Panos said she became involved in politics out of a desire to help people, citing her involvement in the community as a PTA member, catechism teacher and wetlands preservation activist. While others may be politically minded, she said, her motivation is to better the community. "I like helping people," Panos said. "I like making sure the right thing gets done. I'm not into this dirty, dirty politics. I see the dirtiness in it." The claims made by Panos regarding a loophole in the town's pay-to-play ordinance stemmed from a recently awarded $176,000 contract for a storm sewer by-pass project on Pine Street. CME Associates was awarded the no-bid contract through the town's fair and open process, which involves measuring the qualifications of several firms to find the best one for the job. Though both Mayor Jim Phillips and Business Administrator Mike Jacobs said professional contracts are rarely, if ever, awarded through a low-bid process, the township does take estimates from competing professionals as part of the fair and open process. In the case of CME and the Pine Street project, no other estimates were obtained. While town officials said it was a natural progression for CME to be given the work since the firm performed the project's preliminary stages, Panos disagreed. She said they were given the contract because of large contributions they have made to Democratic campaign funds at the various levels of government. The Democrats, according to Panos, are using the fair and open process to avoid the restrictions of the pay-to-play ordinance, which would have prohibited CME from getting the contract. Gillespie disagrees that any ordinance was circumvented or that the contract was granted wrongly. "If they have broken the ordinance, I would like to see proof, and they wouldn't get the contract," Gillespie said of CME. Both Gillespie and Panos accused the other of being politically motivated because it is an election year. Panos said Gillespie and other council Democrats are unhappy with the negative image they may have gotten when she brought the issue to light. "It's an election-year tactic, and they want to look good, and I didn't make them look good," Panos said. "I hit them where it hurt, and they don't want that. They knew they were wrong on that. They have a lot to protect." Gillespie continued to refute Panos' claims, saying she had no proof of her allegations. "When someone engages in a political attack, I'm going to respond, especially in this case, where she has no credibility," Gillespie said.