Court Opinion

ID: 9756475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:30:06.586101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:23.354774
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
dissenting.
In this appeal, as in Casamasino v. City of Jersey City, 158 N.J. 333, 730 A.2d 287 (1999), also decided today, a municipal tax assessor who was not reappointed at the expiration of her statutory term of office and was permitted to serve as a “holdover” assessor for two additional years is removed from office for *374political reasons. The Court sustains the removal. As in Casamasino, I am convinced that the Court’s disposition frustrates the Legislature’s clear purpose to insulate municipal tax assessors from politically inspired removals, a purpose evidenced by the fixed, statutory four-year term for assessors that does not authorize holdover status. The Director of the Division of Taxation, in whom the Legislature has reposed the ultimate responsibility for supervising municipal tax assessors, see N.J.S.A. 54:1-36 and -37, has intervened in the action to assert his view that plaintiffs midterm removal undermines the carefully crafted legislative scheme designed to safeguard the independence of tax assessors. For the reasons expressed in my dissenting opinion in Casamasino, supra, 158 N.J. at 333-55, 730 A.2d at 290-99, I believe that the appropriate disposition of this appeal is to set aside the municipality’s removal of the assessor, reinstate her, and permit her to serve out the balance of her statutory term.
I acknowledge the factual distinction between the two cases. In Casamasino, there is no indication that the Mayor and Council were unaware that Casamasino’s full four-year term had expired, but they simply elected to take no action to reappoint him. In contrast, the Mayor and Council in Kaman mistakenly believed that her term expired in June 1996, rather than June 1994, and thus their inaction was the result of misinformation and was not deliberate. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the legislative intent is best advanced by construing N.J.S.A. 40A:9-148 “to prohibit municipalities from willfully or inadvertently exposing tax assessors to the vulnerability of holdover status.” Casamasino, supra, 158 N.J. at 370, 730 A.2d at 308.
POLLOCK, J., joins in this dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices HANDLER, O’HEARN, GARIBALDI and COLEMAN — 5.
For reversal — Justices POLLOCK and STEIN — 2.