Published in the Ocean County Observer
By JOHN HAZARD
Staff Writer
TOMS RIVER -- Independent candidate for mayor Paul C. Brush criticized Mayor John F. Russo Jr.'s absence from a discussion Monday on chemical waste buried on the Ciba-Geigy property.
Russo said he attended the meeting of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, but left before representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection could respond to accusations by Russo that a landfill on the Ciba site contains drums of hazardous waste and is leaking. The DEP official said the landfill may contain hazardous waste, but is "absolutely not leaking."
Russo left early to attend a meeting of the Lakewood Board of Adjustment, where he serves as attorney.
Brush said Russo had an obligation to attend the meeting and respond to the DEP, because he has made the Ciba property and contamination there a cornerstone of his campaign.
"He didn't want the confrontation with the DEP," Brush said. "He knows he's been deceptive about the drums at the Ciba site ... and he knows he should never have brought up the Ciba site as an issue in his campaign.
"He has been running all over town telling everyone there are drums (of hazardous waste) buried there," he said. "If he knew something, he had the obligation to present it there. He had the opportunity to discuss it with them and he skipped it."
Russo dismissed Brush's criticism as petty.
"I still have to support my family," he said. "I still have a day job to get done. I stayed as long as I could; I made sure the group had whatever information they needed and I left."
Brush has criticized Russo in the past for mentioning the Ciba property in his campaign for mayor, saying "it politicizes an emotionally charged issue for a town that lost so many children to cancer."
Linda Gillick, chairwoman of the CACCCC, during Monday's meeting, voiced similar concerns, without naming Russo, that politicians had abused the issue.
"Shame on anyone who is doing that," she said.
Published in the Ocean County Observer on October 22, 2003
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