By Abraham Gutman
The Philadelphia Inquirer
COLLINGSWOOD BOROUGH, N.J. — A Collingswood commissioner has sued the South Jersey borough, asking a judge to nullify an ambulance-services contract with Virtua Health because the mayor’s husband works for the health system.
James Maley is accusing Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward, who is a member of the three-person commissioners board, of voting in favor of the contract despite an opinion from the borough’s solicitor saying she should not vote, according to the complaint, filed in Camden County Superior Court.
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The lawsuit was filed two weeks after the Dec. 1 meeting in which the board approved the contract in a 2-1 vote. A draft contract has not been made publicly available, and there was a dispute between Maley and Solano-Ward during the meeting about the exact parameters of the arrangement with Virtua .
“It’s absurd, it is wrong, it’s unethical,” Maley said during the meeting.
Solano-Ward did not respond to a request for comment. The attorney representing Collingswood in the lawsuit, Alexandra Jacobs, declined to comment.
The Camden County borough has 14,000 residents. It is governed by a three-person board whose members are elected every four years in nonpartisan elections. The board then appoints a member as mayor.
Maley has been a commissioner since 1989 and served as mayor from 1997 until May, after his running mates to fill the two other board seats lost. Solano-Ward and Amy Henderson Riley, running under the Collingswood Forward slate, took the board’s majority.
The catalyst for the dispute was concerns that Solano-Ward heard from the borough’s fire chief over his department’s lack of capacity to respond to the 4,000 calls it receives annually, the mayor said in the meeting. The emergency medical services generate $450,000 a year, the lawsuit says.
The mayor held a meeting with Collingswood’s fire chief in August, the suit says, and brought her husband, a Virtua critical-care physician, Jared Ward.
Ward does not hold a leadership position in the South Jersey healthcare system. A spokesperson for Virtua declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Virtua was one of two entities that responded to a request for proposals to provide ambulance services for the borough.
At the Dec. 1 meeting, Solano-Ward defended her husband’s involvement, saying the borough does not have a medical officer and she wanted to be sure no question went unasked.
She also addressed the potential conflict of interest, saying she wanted to be forthcoming to prevent any appearance of impropriety. But she refused to recuse herself, despite the solicitor’s recommendation.
“We reached out to our attorney and he agreed that there could be a conflict of interest,” the mayor said in the meeting. “To which I respectfully disagree and I will be voting on the matter.”
The lawsuit says that Solano-Ward involved her husband in the process while shunning Maley and Henderson Riley, who is the borough’s public safety chief.
Henderson Riley, who has a doctoral degree in public health, declined to comment on the dispute. She voted in favor of the contract at the Dec. 1 meeting, telling the public that her review of the data led her to support a one-year trial.
“To be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, I believe in my role as director of public safety, it’s what I was elected to do,” Henderson Riley said.
Maley’s lawsuit is asking a judge to find that there was a conflict of interest and nullify the vote. A hearing is scheduled for January.
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