Heavy Drama in Hammonton

That's exactly what happened this fall in Hammonton, a small Atlantic County town where local politics have taken some surreal turns of late.

The drama there has centered largely on a rather pedestrian concern - the building of a town hall, a topic that had been under discussion for seven years.

But, in the process, accusations have flown in all directions - at council members, at the mayor, at a local businessman, and at the police chief, who was brought up on formal charges.

While the story has been simmering for months, many of the details have recently been aired publicly for the first time at administrative hearings for Police Chief Frank Ingemi, who was accused of insubordination, harassing the mayor, and other transgressions.

The charges against the chief have become the talk of the town, which calls itself the "blueberry capital of the world." Signs that read "Support Our Chief" have become common lawn ornaments in Hammonton. The case is nearing its conclusion.

Dozens of people have attended Ingemi's administrative hearings, which were opened to the public at his request. Most are supporters, judging by the round of applause he received when he walked into the courtroom on the first day.

The controversy also has a special resonance in a town with an everyone-knows-everyone atmosphere, and where more than half the population claims an attachment to Hammonton's deeply rooted Italian ancestry.

The seeds of this story were sown in the 2005 town elections, when a political party called Hammonton First swept into power. Local developer John DiDonato took the mayor's seat, and three other Hammonton First candidates won slots on the council.

The Hammonton First slate had opposed a plan to build a new town hall on the outskirts of town, preferring a less-expensive option to build next to the current town hall downtown.

Immediately after taking office in 2006, the council approved the $5.9 million town hall the Hammonton First candidates favored, ending a seven-year debate.

On the site where the new town hall would be constructed sat a 119-year-old building that once housed the Hammonton town hall. It would have to be moved.

Instead of hiring a general contractor to move the building, the council awarded the work piecemeal to several companies, including one, Calderone Property Services, owned by the mayor's cousin - a move that has drawn criticism.

The bids for the work came under the legal limit that would have required an open, competitive process, said Jim MacLane, a Democratic Party leader in Hammonton.

"It was fairly obvious the reason things were split up was to keep it under the bid threshold and award it to certain companies," he said. "The whole thing from the very beginning was handled wrong. If anyone really challenges it, they'll find it was illegal to split up the bids like that."

Hammonton First Councilman Rocky Colasurdo said the council didn't hire a general contractor because it got much of the work done for free by volunteers, including the mayor's brother, also a contractor. Doing it that way saved the town money, he said.

Calderone removed asbestos from the historic building, even though the company wasn't licensed to do so, according to testimony at the chief's hearings in February.

DiDonato said he didn't know at the time that Calderone was not licensed to remove asbestos. He added that the town solicitor had given the OK for Calderone to do the work, and he said he abstained from voting to hire his cousin.

After Calderone removed the asbestos, local businessman Ken Messina complained to environmental agencies that asbestos had been removed improperly. Messina is a friend of Ingemi's, and he works with MacLane at Asphalt Paving Systems, a local road-construction firm. He said he complained out of concern for people working at the town hall.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigator found a small amount of asbestos on the ground at the site. No federal action was taken, an EPA spokesman said, and the town later hired a licensed asbestos-removal contractor to clean up.

But DiDonato and Colasurdo smelled sabotage.

"I inspected the site many, many times," Colasurdo said, "and there was no asbestos on the ground."

Colasurdo then asked Ingemi to investigate where the asbestos had originated. Colasurdo said he suggested that it might have been planted by Messina or the KKK, which had leafleted the town a few weeks earlier.

"I said: 'I'm not blaming anyone. It looks suspicious,' " Colasurdo recalled at the chief's hearing last month.

The day after Colasurdo asked for an investigation, an article appeared in the Press of Atlantic City about the matter. In the September story, Ingemi answered "yes" when asked if he thought the Klan accusation was absurd. Ingemi said last week that he had been misquoted.

"The way the article read, it looked like Colasurdo was absurd for suggesting the KKK was involved," the councilman said. "I think the chief went to the press."

Ingemi's lawyer shot back at Colasurdo.

"You tell me why it isn't absurd . . . that you would make a connection to the KKK when you knew this historic building existed with asbestos," said the attorney, Lou Barbone.

The matter also caught the attention of Joseph V. Bednarsky, the imperial wizard of the Millville chapter of the Klan. He attended a council meeting last fall and said that, if Colasurdo did not apologize, the Klan would demonstrate this spring in Hammonton.

Colasurdo said he hadn't accused the Klan of anything.

"But if I had made a statement against your organization," he said, "I certainly wouldn't apologize for it."

Among the charges lodged against the chief in October was that he talked about an open investigation to the Atlantic City newspaper. DiDonato and Colasurdo brought those and other charges.

The Police Department closed the investigation into the asbestos, saying there was no link to Messina or the KKK. And, because the asbestos removed by Calderone had been hauled away, there was no way to compare what was in the building with what was found on the ground.

"I'm just shocked and embarrassed to have my name in this police report and to be accused of something I didn't do," Messina said.

Ingemi also was charged with not wearing his police uniform while on duty. But it was clear from the testimony last month that the uniform issue was not a sartorial one.

"The chief is in a unique situation where he has several businesses in addition to being chief of police," Colasurdo said. "People come up to me and say, 'Is he doing police business or is he doing personal business?' "

He said the chief owns a heating-oil company and has real estate holdings.

Barbone, the chief's attorney, later asked Colasurdo if the chief had ever been accused of improperly mixing his personal business with his police duties. Colasurdo said he couldn't answer because a complaint about the chief had been lodged with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Camden said he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.

At the end of Ingemi's last hearing March 2, the town's lawyer asked the chief why he thought the council was "out to get you."

"I have no idea," Ingemi said. "Maybe because I didn't agree with their position on the town hall."

The administrative judge said he would issue his ruling after he receives written closing arguments on Monday. The judge has dropped the charges against Ingemi for not wearing his uniform and for talking to the newspaper. He will rule on the remaining three charges.

Messina defended the chief and blasted the mayor, who said that Messina and Ingemi were business partners.

"Frank Ingemi has spent 30 years winning the respect of the community," Messina said. "Mayor DiDonato [won] an election last year and he wants people to respect him in the same way."

Messina added that he and the chief do not have any businesses together and said the mayor was "fortunate he's not charged with perjury."

"He had no idea his cousin wasn't certified to remove asbestos? That's a lie," he said. "And the accusations against me are certainly a lie."

In one, final strange twist, in December two women who are members of the Hammonton First party received threatening letters in the mail. Included in the packages were animal parts - a tongue and deer testicles.

So far, that episode has been one of the few pieces of Hammonton political lore that has not come up at the chief's hearings.