The New Jersey Monitor picked up on the Scutari low-show Linden job story as if there would be real consequences. There won’t be but at least we got a couple of quotes and a copy of the Calcagni Kanefsky report.
“Unfortunately, we have such a culture of corruption and complicity in New Jersey that is fairly unsavory, and these things go on and on until a group of people says, ‘Hey, we need to stop this,’” said Altman.
“This is a criminal justice issue — folks’ first entry way to the criminal justice system is often through municipal court,” said Altman. “To think we had a prosecutor whose full attention wasn’t on the job at hand is extremely troubling.”
Hector Osegeura, a Hudson County activist who signed onto the ethics complaint, said New Jersey has a problem with “politicians that don’t think the ethics rules apply to them and they flout those rules.” Oseguera said he hopes to see Scutari held to the same standard as a citizen accused of abusing the system, but worries the matter will be swept under the rug.
“That’s not to say something like this is not worth doing because if we’re not the ones bringing up these sorts of dealings, no one would even know it’s happening, and that is much worse to me,” he said. “We need more people to find out what’s going on and fight it.”
countywatchers 
Posted by qpat00 on August 13, 2021 at 11:20 am
Sadly this useless public servant/elected official/alleged criminal, senator scutari, is also the democratic political boss of Union County and as such controls the democrat towns in the county along with the county govt and its entities such as the UCUA and UCIA. The adage of “A fish rots from his head down” is so true in this case. He is able to put his buffonish acolytes in so many high paying public jobs and elected offices, most with a dearth of real expereince for the job, but that is the definition of corruption which permeates our county. Sadly so many county democrats are so closed minded that they stupidly vote down the line for this corrupt system with no critical thinking. So give a couple of park concerts, couple of special entertainment and activities, (even though entertainment not the purpose of govt) and the clueless lemmings will follow. Fortunatley, John Bury chronicles all this in his 2 blogs, this and his Burypension blog. Thank you john for coverage of this “rotten fish head scutari” issue.
Posted by Bob Healey on August 14, 2021 at 2:04 pm
Has Scutari’s alleged crime been referred to AG Bruck at the office of the state AG? If yes, what is the status. If no, why not?
Bob Healey
Posted by burypensions on August 14, 2021 at 2:22 pm
At this level, unlikely to be anything criminal.
Main point seems to be getting someone else to do the job you were hired to do which should have some consequences. $100 fine maybe?
But what’s missing here is that Scutari was allowed to skip all those days and run his office without any apparent oversight. What was the governing body doing when this was going on? Did they need to pay somebody a few hundred thousand dollars (wild guess here – it could have been more) to perform their oversight duties? If they weren’t qualified to do that then what exactly are they qualified to do?
Posted by Bob Healey on August 14, 2021 at 2:54 pm
I completely agree with your opinion that there should be more oversight to prevent this kind of thing. But I respectfully disagree with the implication that, as it may be “unlikely to be anything criminal”, the State AG need not be involved.
As a former municipal prosecutor and a State Senator, Scutari should be held to the highest standards for ethical conduct. I think we need to insist that the AG’s office weigh in on this and investigate. No one in Union county can be impartial in an investigation of Scutari. Whether the result is no criminal violations are found, or something warranting a $ 100 fine, so be it; but at least the accusations are properly investigated, and we maintain the principal that even kingmakers are not above the law.
Bob Healey