Introduction
MILTON MILAN was the third mayor of Camden to be brought down on corruption charges. Wikipedia describes him as follows:
Milton Milan is an American Democratic politician. He was the first Latino mayor of Camden, New Jersey, elected in 1997, before being convicted of corruption and subsequently removed from office, becoming the third Camden mayor in 20 years to be found guilty of corruption.
He was elected to City Council in 1995. During his first term as mayor, he was indicted on a 19-count corruption case, and convicted on 14 of those counts, among them:
- laundered $65,000 in drug money
- staged a break-in with his former business partner to collect insurance money
- illegally accepted $30,000 to $50,000 in bribes from the Mafia
- used campaign money to pay for a vacation to Puerto Rico
- received two vehicles and thousands of dollars in free work on his home from city contractors
- and authorized the shakedown of a $5,000 political contribution from the city’s public defender
The judge sentenced him to the maximum allowed under federal sentencing guidelines: seven years and three months in prison minus time served, and three years of supervision, plus barred from running for office. He spared Milan a fine, citing the lack of ability to pay. But was held responsible for $14,761 in restitution.
Camden Files for Bankruptcy
Camden Courier-Post —
Action brings showdown with state over aid
By HAROLD T. NEDD, Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN — Saying the city would run out of money in two weeks, Camden officials filed for bankruptcy protection Monday in a showdown with the state over financial aid. Gov. Christie Whitman called the action “reckless.”
The filing marked only the second time in more than 60 years that a New Jersey municipality has sought bankruptcy protection.
Mayor Milton Milan said he took the action to ensure Camden, which has been under state financial oversight since July 1998, can continue providing services. But state officials accused the city of manufacturing a crisis and said the filing shows the city does not want to be held financially accountable.
“This bankruptcy petition is the only thing stopping me from sending all firefighters and police home today,” the mayor said as he walked two blocks from City Hall to United States Bankruptcy Court with other city officials.
“If it means for me to step aside to get the services needed for residents, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Camden sought relief under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which provides municipalities protection from creditors while they reorganize their debts.
The city, which has for years relied on state aid to meet its budget, faces a projected $24.7 million shortfall in its current $111 million budget.
The filing had no immediate impact on city services or bill payments, and will not affect the repayment of municipal bonds issued by the city, which is required by law by the state. But a bankruptcy reorganization would mean creditors or businesses owed money by Camden could negotiate with the city in the court.
The Whitman administration said it was consulting with the attorney general on the bankruptcy filing. Under New Jersey law, the state now oversees the city’s major finances and administration to ensure that local governments meet their debt and other financial obligations.
No date was set for a hearing on the bankruptcy petition. City Attorney John Miscj Jr. estimated it could be in a few or more weeks.
Under federal law, municipalities must receive permission from the state to obtain bankruptcy relief.
Milan acknowledged the city would need to receive such authorization, but said he had no choice but to file the petition.
Whitman said the state has an obligation to the taxpayers of Camden and to the taxpayers across the state who are paying taxes, and she will make sure that tax dollars are being spent as responsibly and efficiently as possible.
“Reaching this goal begins with accountability,” a premise Camden Mayor Milan said he hoped to put into practice at Camden City Hall.
The state board member overseeing Camden’s finances said the bankruptcy petition was not anti-accountability. “It’s an act of politics,” he said.
Milan said he had hoped to avoid a showdown with the state. “We’ve done everything we could do to prevent the state from getting to this point. The administration feels that they owe to us by my signature what is owed, and this would take power away from the administration and from the city. I’m not going to do that,” he said.
The city was due last week to receive unspecified state funding relief, needed of about $15 million, to fill the gap between city losses from tax-exempt and taxable properties. If the aid had been received, the mayor said, the petition would have been unnecessary.
“While we will continue to provide city services, the city is only going to last so long. So we have come to the state for additional aid,” said city attorney John E. Miscj Jr.
The city owes vendors about $8 million and the bond debt is approximately $29 million.
Professor Robert Bailey, who teaches public policy at Rutgers University and is a former member of the New York State Emergency Financial Control Board from 1975 to 1978, urged that the state not take over the city’s finances, saying it could reflect poorly on the state.
“A state of relative wealth in New Jersey has a municipality that has filed for bankruptcy while the rest of the country is experiencing an economic boom,” he said.
Letter to Camden Residents
Office of the Mayor, City of Camden —
Dear Fellow Residents:
I take this opportunity to write to you and share my excitement about the progress that the City of Camden has seen over the past year. Increasing the “quality of life” here in the City is the cornerstone of my administration. Please take a moment and let me tell you about some of the things that we have done.
This year saw a significant decline in the crime rate. Community policing is a resounding success. The police are directly involved with the neighborhoods that they serve and protect, and are building solid, long term relationships with the residents. Consequently, they’re more responsive to your needs.
I believe that the great number of law abiding residents of this City do not deserve to be held hostage by those who refuse to follow the law. Therefore, I’ve established a Code Enforcement Task Force, which I often accompany to your neighborhoods. I’ve charged this task force with enforcing our laws concerning excessive noise, property maintenance, graffiti, fire prevention, and other nuisance behavior that negatively impacts our lives.
Our parks and streets are cleaner. Recently, along with CCOP, we celebrated the board up of the last vacant home in the City of Camden. However, vacant houses are sometimes broken into after we seal them. That’s where we need your help. If you know of a house that needs to be sealed, call our Board Up Hotline at 757-7188. This year we eagerly demolished many vacant houses. Look for more to fall in the coming year to make way for new homes. Planned commercial development is at the highest rate in decades, as companies throughout the region either relocate or plan to relocate to the City of Camden in the near future.
I’m committed to providing recreation and entertainment opportunities for every resident—from toddlers to senior citizens. Our community centers are open to serve you, and the summer recreation program in full swing. The Annual Summer Celebration was a resounding success. On Sunday, August 9, 1998, thousands of our residents came to our waterfront for a day of family fun and entertainment. Plan to be there next year as we do it again, only bigger and better.
Every Wednesday, I host a resident day here in my office. If you want to meet with me, just call my office at 757-7200 and schedule an appointment.
As residents of the City of Camden, we face many issues and everyone may not always agree with how they’re addressed. However, I know we all agree that the City of Camden is coming back. Therefore, I’ve adopted “Experience the Rebirth—I Believe” as our 1998 slogan. Remember, my administration and I stand ready to serve you. May God Bless you and all that you hold dear. I remain,
Very truly yours,
Milton Milan
Mayor
3 Kings Bring Glee to Children
Camden Courier-Post —
Hispanic Christmas Celebration Held in Camden
By ANGELA RUCKER, Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN — Six-year-old Danny Dombkowski paused briefly — very briefly — after scooting out of the McGuire Gardens Community Center with his arms wrapped around a box filled with toy cars and other contraptions.
It was a little like Christmas all over again for Danny and other children celebrating Three Kings Day, a holiday many area Hispanics mark every year with gifts, holiday music and good cheer.
“It’s the vehicles,” Danny said while eyeing his gift through the plastic wrapper. “I’m going to open it and I’m going to play with the men.”
Then he was off.
The Three Kings Day celebration at the McGuire Gardens public housing complex in East Camden was put on by the Asociacion De Puertorriquenos En Marcha, a Hispanic social services agency in Camden. The group purchased toys and candy for 300 to 350 children, said John Fuentes, the group’s executive director. More than 80 youngsters had stopped by in the first hour alone.
“We’re celebrating the traditional Latin American Christmas, sort of the Puerto Rican version,” Fuentes said.
In the biblical Christmas story, the three Magi, or wise men, traveled from the east through the desert, following a star, to find the newborn Jesus with his parents outside a Bethlehem inn. Once there, they presented the baby with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
On Three Kings Day, celebrated Jan. 6, adults provide gifts for children. And at McGuire Gardens, local officials posing as the three kings — including Camden Mayor Milton Milan decked out in a flowing gold robe and red crown — passed out presents.
“We honor all kids because every kid has that potential,” said Fuentes, referring to the Christ child.
Jose Rivas, the job development coordinator at APM, said that in Puerto Rico, children usually get a lesser gift on Christmas and the main gift on Three Kings Day. “That way, they can keep the tradition,” he said.
Tables in the community center were piled with Barbie dolls, Furbies, Mr. Potato Heads, soccer balls, race cars and other toys. After getting a toy and having their photographs taken with the three kings, each child received candy.
“These guys are pretty lucky. They get to celebrate twice,” Milan said.
According to tradition, on the night before Three Kings Day, children are to place grass and water in a box underneath their beds, Fuentes explained. The tradition is similar to children placing milk and cookies out on Christmas Eve for Santa Claus. The camels that transported the Magi to Bethlehem eat and drink the grass and water, and the three kings leave gifts in the box for the children.
Any leftover toys after Three Kings Day will be distributed to children on Sunday at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, at Lois and River avenues.
Milan to Appear Over Firing Lawsuit
Philadelphia Inquirer —
A former aide accuses the former mayor of acting vindictively after criticism of his policies.
By Dwight Ott, Inquirer Staff Writer
CAMDEN — Jailed ex-Mayor Milton Milan is scheduled to answer accusations in U.S. District Court today that he wrongfully fired an assistant business administrator who spoke out against his policies.
Milan, 41, is serving a seven-year sentence in a minimum-security federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania. It is said that he has been “born again” and has forgiven his enemies — and that he has lost weight and is running 10 miles a day. Friends say that upon his release, he may become a minister.
Milan, the city’s first Hispanic mayor, was convicted in December 2000 of charges that he accepted payoffs from organized-crime figures, solicited bribes from city vendors, skimmed money from a political action committee, and laundered drug money.
At the time of former assistant business administrator Keith Walker’s lawsuit, filed shortly after Milan’s conviction, Milan branded the allegations a “lie.”
Milan is scheduled to be the first witness in the case, which is expected to last about two weeks.
John C. Eastlack Jr., the lawyer hired to defend the city, said Walker was fired in May 1999 because he failed in his duties as assistant business administrator. “Because [Milton Milan] was convicted, it doesn’t mean open season on the City of Camden for anyone who wants to make a claim,” Eastlack said in his opening statement. “It’s not about the conviction of Milton Milan.”
Walker, who is African American, alleges that he was hired in September 1997 at a lower salary and with a different benefits package of an assistant business administrator, James Reynolds, who is white.
Once on board, Walker says in the suit, he challenged decisions made by Milan and other top city officials. In one instance, the suit alleges, Walker raised questions about a trip Milan had taken to the island of Dominica.
“Keith Walker was the conscience of the people and the employees of Camden,” his attorney, Mark Frost, said in his opening statement yesterday. “For that he was terminated… . We’re concerned about First Amendment rights and freedom of speech. We will prove that what he spoke out against cost him his job.”
Eastlack disagreed: “What this case is about is the personal responsibility of Keith Walker to perform his job he was hired to do… . There was no violation of Mr. Walker’s First Amendment rights.”
Noting that Walker served as the city’s spokesman, Eastlack said that was an unlikely position for someone whose free speech was being curbed.
Milan was to be transported yesterday from Loretto, Cambria County, to the Philadelphia area, Eastlack said.
The Rev. Ivonne Martinez, a friend and supporter who visited Milan in August, said the facility was almost like a college campus and that she saw only about three security guards. She added that Milan drives around in a golf cart supervising a 22-man maintenance crew and that he “was doing excellent and was a born-again Christian.”
The facility is “an open space, no bars, no chains, or barbed wire,” Martinez said. “He said if he wanted to, he could get in his car and keep going, but he would never do that, he said, because ‘I’m Christian.’ He is preaching and practicing the word of God.”
She said Milan said there were doctors, dentists and lawyers in the facility.
She said she believed he would become a Pentecostal minister upon his release.
She said he was not bitter: “Milton Milan is thankful to the Lord. He thanks everybody. Some people think they did this to hurt him. He realizes it was really God working in his life.”