| Friday, March 10, 2006 |
MAHWAH -- Samantha Moor's tough week got a little better on Thursday. A municipal judge offered her an option for possibly reducing or suspending the $4,921 in fines she has incurred for property maintenance violations. Judge A.J. Gianni told Moor to accept the aid of volunteers who have offered to help clean up her yard after reading about her plight in The Record. If the North Hillside Avenue property is in compliance with township codes when she returns to court in 30 days, Gianni said, he will "reconsider" the fines. On Tuesday, Moor was roused from her bed and arrested by township police for failing to pay the fines she began racking up nearly two years ago. When she was unable to post bail, she was taken to the Bergen County Jail and strip-searched, she said. Just before midnight, she was bailed out by her ex-husband.
"They put me in jail with criminals," Moor said tearfully outside town hall after the court proceeding.
She has been fined for, among other things:
Moor was raised in Maine in a 250-year-old house. She developed a love for old homes, so when she and her former husband were looking for a place to raise their son, the 1895 stone and brown shingle home on nearly an acre seemed perfect. They looked at houses is Ridgewood, Wyckoff and other towns, but Mahwah's rustic side appealed to her.
"I moved here because I thought it would be like Maine," she said.
Her husband, who worked in Manhattan, could walk to the train. The schools were good for her now 26-year-old son. And she could indulge her green thumb by planting fruit trees, grapevines and vegetables, she said. Moor's problems began six years ago when she hired a contractor, using money borrowed against her house, to remodel her kitchen and dining room. The contractor stripped the two rooms down to the studs. She was going through a divorce at the time, and when the contractor -- her good friend's husband -- asked for the final installment for the $42,000 job, she didn't think anything of it. Weeks went by and the contractor never came back. "It was stupid," she says, looking back. "But they were my friends. I didn't think they were looking to cheat me."
Her husband, though now estranged, continued to support her until he was laid off after a corporate upheaval at the software company he worked for and invested in. The stock crashed and so did their life savings. Six weeks later, her husband had a heart attack. Moor started taking classes learning to do plumbing and electrical work thinking she could fix up her house herself and gain a new career to support her husband. Finding work proved difficult. "I've been out of the workforce since my early 20s," the 48-year-old said. She said she has applied at ShopRite, The Home Depot and other places that advertise a need for nighttime help. Then she could focus on getting her plumbing business off the ground during the day. In the meantime, she learned how to do roofing, climbed on top of her two-story home and reshingled the roof. "I've worked steadily to improve my house," she said.
Moor suspects that the real reason for the fines is to get her to forfeit her property. The sprawling parcel could be subdivided into two or three lots, she said. "Yeah, it's untidy, but that can be fixed," she said, gesturing toward patio furniture, piles of roofing shingles, bundled stacks of newspapers and gardening supplies strewn about her leaf-ridden yard. "You think this is worth $5,000? Or putting me in jail?" Mayor Richard Martel said he has no idea where the notion of someone trying to take Moor's home comes from. "I don't know who would be trying to take her property," he said. "Not the township. We're not around to do that."
Martel fielded phone calls from three groups of people -- some residents and some from outside of the township -- who want to help Moor get her house in order. "They offered to assemble some people ... and said they'd be happy to spend some time helping Ms. Moor." One of those volunteers is former councilman and Planning Board member Louis Rizzo. "It's a beautiful town we have here," Rizzo said outside the courtroom Thursday. "I hate to see something like this."
| Monday, March 13, 2006 |
NO ONE should go to jail for having a messy yard, or for failing to pay fines arising from an unkempt property. This is, after all, 21st century America, not Dickensian England. We don't have debtor's prison here for people without money to pay bills. Or at least we're not supposed to. But a municipal judge in Mahwah last week sent a borough homeowner to jail over her failure to pay $4,921 in fines for the sloppy condition of her property. The woman, Samantha Moor, escaped having to spend a night in the Bergen County Jail on Tuesday only because her ex-husband bailed her out. It's outrageous that Ms. Moor was arrested in the first place. Communities should try to help people like her who have fallen down on their luck, not put them behind bars.
And many good-hearted people in our area stand ready to help, as evidenced by the calls and e-mails last week to Mahwah officials and to Record Staff Writer Alison Pries, who has been reporting on Ms. Moor's case. The publicity about Ms. Moor, and the outpouring of public sympathy, seem also to have softened the approach of the municipal judge who initially ordered her arrest. Judge A.J. Gianni told Ms. Moor on Thursday that he would consider suspending or reducing the fines if she accepted the help of volunteers in cleaning her property. Court officials say Mr. Gianni had also tried to be flexible earlier by inviting Ms. Moor to pay the fine in installments and by setting her bail at the low amount of $250.
But Ms. Moor has financial problems stemming from her getting ripped off by a building contractor several years ago and from the layoff of her former husband from his job. She doesn't seem to have any money for the fines. And she also appears to believe she should not have to pay them. Such a situation could arise in any town. But when municipal officials get locked into an adversarial stance with stubborn or down-and-out homeowners, no one wins. A far better solution is to meet with such homeowners personally before hauling them to court, and to contact social-work agencies, religious congregations or service clubs that might be able to help. Ms. Moor might now get the aid she needs. But she shouldn't have had to face jail to receive it.
northjersey.com has the editorial posted as well as two letters to the editor today. I don't know how to put them on this site or even if I can do so using the library computer. thank you for posting the second article.
If anyone would be willing to help me by emailing the Record just to request a follow-up-I'm not asking anybody to stick up for me, just to keep the interest in the story alive. The Judge made it very clear that I will be treated differently once the media losed interest.
northjersey.com has the editorial posted as well as two letters to the editor today. I don't know how to put them on this site or even if I can do so using the library computer. thank you for posting the second article.
If anyone would be willing to help me by emailing the Record just to request a follow-up-I'm not asking anybody to stick up for me, just to keep the interest in the story alive. The Judge made it very clear that I will be treated differently once the media losed interest.