Category: South Jersey

Citations against several protesters were dismissed Thursday after the ACLU of New Jersey intervened in a recent conflict between roadside demonstrators and Bellmawr police, an ACLU official said in a statement.

Last month, the Bellmawr Police Department issued citations against several people attending or driving past weekly “Roadside Rallies against Fascism” hosted by Cooper River Indivisible, a Camden County grassroots organization, according to ACLU-NJ.

It is unclear exactly how many people received citations from Bellmawr police while demonstrating against President Donald Trump and his administration. But Maia Raposo, communications director for ACLU-NJ, said the nonprofit is representing six people involved.

Five of those six people went to Bellmawr Municipal Court on Thursday, Raposo said, and four of the five had their citations dismissed, which included jaywalking and failing to stop at a stop sign.

“Today, the municipal court in Bellmawr dismissed charges against four individuals who received tickets while they were lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights. We look forward to resolving the remaining charges pending against our other clients,” said Rebecca Uwakwe, ACLU-NJ’s criminal law reform advocacy director, in an emailed statement.

Raposo did not share the names of those involved or the status of the citations that were not dropped Thursday.

The Bellmawr Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

On Aug. 25, ACLU-NJ emailed a letter to Bellmawr Police Chief Keith Williams alleging that officers had issued “traffic and criminal citations for honking, jaywalking, and other offenses” to rally-goers and supporters gathering at Black Horse Pike and Gloucester Road in Bellmawr.

“If Bellmawr officers are targeting participants and supporters of lawful protests with citations, Bellmawr is interfering with their constitutionally protected activities and violating their civil rights,” the letter reads.

ACLU-NJ asked Bellmawr police to investigate the officers’ conduct and to reply to the letter by Sept. 11. Raposo did not say whether the police department had responded to the letter but wrote in an email that ACLU-NJ can provide more information when all relevant cases are resolved.

Cooper River Indivisible’s next roadside rally was scheduled for Sunday, and the event posting promoting the demonstration warned attendees that they have “been unfairly targeted by local police.” The group did not respond to requests for comment.

“Do your best to keep the messaging on target — Bellmawr PD is a problem, but our real enemy is tyranny as a whole. Eyes on the prize,” the post reads.

After decades as a popular hang-out for generations of Oaklyn kids, the aging hockey rink and adjacent basketball court at Oaklyn-Lions Park have both closed because of safety concerns.

Oaklyn Borough officials announced the closures at the Sept. 8 council meeting following an annual safety inspection that recommended the areas be closed because of concerns about the surface, boards, and fencing. The courts closed the following day and it’s unclear how long the repairs could take and how much they’ll cost.

Currently cordoned off by temporary fencing and caution tape, the wooden boards around the rink have come apart in various spots as weeds have sprouted through cracks on the surface.

Right behind one of the hockey nets, two holes in the boards and gaps in the upper protective fencing — all large enough for street hockey balls and pucks to soar through — directly face a neighboring playground.

On the basketball court, only one backboard remains standing — albeit crookedly.

But in spite of the current state of things, the area was still being used up until the sudden closure last week, said lifelong Oaklyn resident Alex Lewis, 36.

Like many other Oaklyn kids, Lewis grew up playing soccer at the hockey rink that for years was informally used for both sports.

“We had this really vibrant soccer-loving community,” Lewis said.

“It was so much the thing to do for our group that if we had a three-day weekend for school, we’d be down there all three nights playing soccer until we basically couldn’t walk anymore,” he said. “It was incredible.”

Eventually, the long-standing shared use of the space was paused in 2006 when an ordinance was passed banning all non-hockey equipment within the rink, Lewis said.

The ordinance has remained in place since then and precipitated a noticeable drop in the rink’s usage, Lewis said.

“There was still a vibrant hockey-playing community, as there should be, which is awesome,” Lewis said. “But the overall use of the court declined and the quality of the court and the upkeep of the court itself declined over that same amount of time.”

That steady decline has been clear to Lewis and others who spent years playing at the park.

Another lifelong Oaklyn resident Billy Gamba, 29, was one of the many hockey players who spent countless hours at the rink learning the fundamentals of the sport.

Almost every night growing up, Gamba and his friends would descend on the rink, he said, honing their skills and eventually passing them on to the players coming up behind them through impromptu clinics.

“We would just meet down there and we pick teams and just play for all hours of the day and throughout the night,” Gamba said.

The rink wasn’t only a draw for Oaklyners either, he said, attracting players from other communities, including Audubon, Collingswood, and Haddon Township.

In spite of its heavy use over the years, Gamba said he doesn’t remember any major repairs taking place at the rink in his lifetime, save for a quick patch-job when he was about 10 years old.

“I used to play down there like four or five nights a week and it just got worse and worse over time,” he said.

“Over the years I stopped playing because I don’t want to get hurt down here,” Gamba said. “I’ve seen guys get seriously hurt down there, whether their stick gets caught in the boards and they jab themselves in the stomach or their wheels or skates catch that deep crack and they fall.”

Just like Lewis, Gamba, and countless other residents, Oaklyn Mayor Greg Brandley has memories as a kid on the courts.

“Growing up in Oaklyn, I played on those courts my whole life as a little kid so it’s very sad to see this happen right now,” Brandley said of the closures.

“It’s something for the kids that we have to get reopened again,” he said.

But repairs won’t be as simple as just pouring a new layer of concrete, Brandley said.

Because the rink has a special surface, he said, the borough will have to consult with engineers on the necessary work and the estimated cost. After that, the discussion will then shift to how to find money for the project in the budget, he said.

As a result, it’s still much too early to put a realistic timeline or price tag on the project, he said.

With that said, Lewis has already gotten a jump on the process.

Last fall, Lewis and the semipro soccer club he founded, Oaklyn United FC, organized a tournament at the courts to help fundraise for the needed repairs.

While the money raised was “just a drop in the bucket” toward the tens of thousands of dollars that will likely be needed for the repairs, Lewis said, it was about trying to give back to “this public resource that in many ways was kind of the birthplace of OUFC.”

And while he’s disappointed that the courts deteriorated to the point of closing, he’s eager to help fix it up and make it even better.

With soccer gaining popularity in the U.S., Lewis noted that it could be the perfect time to formalize the shared-use of the court for both hockey and soccer, which is as simple as painting a few extra lines, he said.

“We’re talking about restoring a public asset that if it doesn’t get restored, it’s just kind of sitting there in this blighted state in what is otherwise kind of the center of the universe for our town,” Lewis said.

Lindenwold will pay $15,000 to a resident who was removed from a council meeting for recording on his phone, settling a lawsuit over the Camden County borough’s video policy.

The lawsuit pushed the seven-person council to rescind its policy last month, which limited public meetings to one camera, required attendees to give 30 minutes’ notice before they record, and demanded that residents provide a copy of the recording to Lindenwold officials within two days.

The lawsuit follows years of calls by residents for the borough to record its own meetings and upload them to its website.

Alfonso Penna, 24, filed the complaint on July 22 against Lindenwold, its mayor, the police chief, and the police officer who escorted Penna out of a June council meeting. He alleged the borough had infringed upon his constitutional right to freedom of expression, his right to record, and the state’s Open Public Meetings Act. Penna, who has lived in Lindenwold all his life, said it took only a few days for Lindenwold to reach out seeking to settle the dispute.

“The residents ended up having to foot the bill of just some incompetence,” said Penna, who started attending all of Lindenwold’s public meetings between service calls in his job as a pool repairman two years ago. “That’s what it came down to.”

Officers escorted Penna out of the June 10 council meeting after Richard Roach, Lindenwold’s longtime mayor, told Penna to leave as he recorded a resident speaking during the public comment period, according to the complaint and a recording of the June meeting.

Roach cited the borough’s one-camera video policy. Trevor Shaw, founder of local community advocacy group Love Lindenwold, has recorded nearly every council meeting since 2018, and he was already recording that night.

In Shaw’s recording, Penna can be heard arguing for his right to record under the Open Public Meetings Act before agreeing to leave after repeated pushback from Roach.

Then, the complaint alleges, at another council meeting in July, Roach again demanded that Penna turn off his camera and asked an officer to escort Penna out. Police Chief Michael McCarthy allegedly told Penna that the meeting would not continue until Penna stopped recording.

But this time, the complaint says, Penna did not leave. Rather than remove him, council members temporarily ended the public session to speak in private. They returned less than 10 minutes later to resume the meeting, and Penna kept recording.

Lawyers for Penna and Lindenwold filed to dismiss the lawsuit Tuesday, after the borough voted unanimously on Sept. 9 to pay thousands of dollars for Penna’s legal fees. The agreement, provided to The Inquirer by Penna, requires that any future recording policies in Lindenwold follow “constitutional limitations” and be enacted by an ordinance, so residents can comment on the rules.

The video policy that was revoked had been enacted by resolution in January at a council meeting, in a single vote approving 65 resolutions at once.

Roach and his fellow council members have not commented on the rescinded policy or their decision to settle at recent meetings. Roach, the borough administrator, and several council members did not return requests for comment.

Raymond Morrissey, who has served on Lindenwold’s council for four years, said he was not aware of any plans for council to create a new recording policy. But the old one will cost residents via the $15,000 payout.

“That impacts all us taxpayers in town because one way or another, it’s an extra expense,” Morrissey said. “Whether it was budgeted or not, it was an extra expense.”

‘A petty power play’

Until it was rescinded in August, Lindenwold’s policy limiting meetings to one camera had been approved by council every January for years. Morrissey said the policy is one of “a gazillion and one resolutions” passed with a single vote during the annual reorganization meeting.

Shaw, a Lindenwold resident since 1998, said the policy has affected him for the last eight years, as he has recorded and posted meetings online.

While Roach has never approached him over the one-camera rule, Shaw said, the mayor has demanded copies of his footage before he posts it to YouTube and criticized him for not giving proper notice.

“To me, it’s always seemed like a petty power play just to exert some perceived level of control or power over the people who choose to attend the meetings,” Shaw said.

It’s unclear exactly how long the policy has limited meetings to one camera, but its language is not very modern. The policy requires people recording to “advise the Council or Borough Clerk of the tape’s permanent location” and “make fair payment for the electricity used while operating the video recording device.”

The now-rescinded policy says the one-camera rule was created to “prevent disruption of council meetings” and could be enforced at the discretion of borough officials.

But Penna’s lawsuit claimed that his cell phone, “silent” and “self-contained,” posed no risk of distraction.

“This was clearly written for a time before smartphones,” Penna said.

At the June meeting, Shaw said, multiple people had taken their phones out to record during the induction of new borough police officers, about a half hour before Penna was removed from the room. Love Lindenwold’s recording shows at least one other person recording on a cell phone, without reproach.

Penna’s complaint attributed that difference to local politics: Penna ran for Lindenwold Council during the June Democratic primary, just days before he was kicked out of the meeting.

Penna lost that election to two incumbent council members.

A vacuum of information

Without the policy, residents can now record Lindenwold meetings regardless of whether Love Lindenwold or Penna is there to record, and no ordinances have been introduced to change that.

But Shaw and Penna both said Lindenwold’s next step should be to start recording and posting its own meetings so the public doesn’t have to. Shaw, who has previously approached borough officials to offer his recordings for Lindenwold’s website, said council has not been receptive to those pitches.

“There’s an enormous vacuum of information in this town,” Shaw said.

Penna agrees. He said attending public meetings could bring more attention to issues important to him and other residents, such as public transit and installing benches at local bus stops, especially as nearby municipalities record and post their own meetings without issue.

“It’s 2026,” Penna said. “I’ll keep holding Lindenwold accountable. There’s a lot of apathy in town. We need more people who want to show up and care because our town is worth caring about.”