New lawyers advising council, Planning Board

Sparta has a new township attorney and a new Planning Board attorney; both replaced men who served a long time in those posts.

At its reorganization meeting in January, the Township Council voted to replace Thomas Ryan of Laddey, Clark & Ryan with Anand Dash of Kennedys Law.

Dash, a Sparta resident, works in the Basking Ridge office of Kennedys, which has 78 offices and associations worldwide.

“Laddey, Clark & Ryan had been with the township for a long time,” said Mayor Neill Clark, who also is a lawyer. “It is not uncommon to switch out municipal attorneys, but over the years, Sparta has been different.

“Kennedys has a huge suite of practice and though Tom Ryan is a good attorney, I thought Sparta could be in a good position with a large firm like Kennedys behind it.”

Dash is the former head of Sparta Responsible Development (SRD), a nonprofit group that has led the opposition to Diamond Chip Realty’s application to build a mega-warehouse in the township. Dash also acted as an objector to the project.

Clark said he does not see a conflict of interest arising from Dash’s appointment.

“He cannot work on the Diamond Chip matter,” said the mayor, who also was involved with SRD before running for office “Anything related to Diamond Chip will be handled by Murphy Orlando, our conflict counsel, especially since he (Dash) is named as a defendant in their civil rights lawsuit against us.

“Murphy Orlando is also doing the low municipal rate. The hourly rates have not changed.”

Dash will be paid $215 an hour.

Planning Board attorney

In February, the Planning Board replaced Tom Collins, a partner of the firm Vogel, Chait, Collins & Schneider, with Kenneth Porro of Brach Eichler.

“The town council doesn’t decide who the Planning Board lawyer is,” Clark said. “I can’t speak to their reason behind moving on from Tom because we don’t have authority to change the lawyer for the Planning Board.”

When asked about Porro and other matters, Joan Furman, chairwoman of the Planning Board, said, “I have no comment with regard to professional/personnel matters.”