WEST MILFORD The group of West Milford citizens trying to introduce a new law took a verbal pounding on Wednesday night. They are, however, vowing to fight to implement the local legislation known as the Sunshine Act’. The authors and supporters of the proposed act, among them Andy Gargano, James Rauth, James Geist (both Rauth and Geist are Democratic candidates for town council) and Robert Nolan (sitting Democratic councilman) couldn’t been prepared for the extent of objections coming from opponents. Everything from causing township bankruptcy to aiding possible pedophilia was cited as possible outcomes of the passing of this law. The argument on both sides of this act have become split almost entirely down party lines. The Democrats in town are supportive of the act whereas local Republicans can barely imagine anything worse. The Sunshine Act proposes several changes to the current open government laws, such as guaranteeing the right of citizens to speak at all public meetings; more township records to be made available on the internet and to decrease the fees for the public to obtain photocopies and other media versions of council records. “No matter how you look at this it’s going to cost us money,” said local business man and Republican candidate for town council Sal Schimmenti. Marilyn Lichtenberg, former council member also spoke against the act, “I don’t think it will bring sunshine to West Milford, I think West Milford would become a dark, dark cloud. We might actually end up with bankruptcy.” As Vice Chairman of the Zoning Board of Adjustment Daniel Jurkovic is currently required to post financial disclosure documents with the town which may also require him to identify his dependants. Jurkovic’s concern starts with the act’s proposal that such disclosures be made available on the town’s Web site. Jurkovic said, “I find it absurd that people would think it appropriate to put my children’s names and addresses on a document that will be posted unsecured on the internet where anybody in the entire world who chooses to sign on can view this information. With all the pedophilia going on in the country right now ... I find this quite disturbing.” In order to bring the act to the council’s attention the organizers had to produce a petition with at least ten percent of the total turnout of registered voters at the prior local town election, a little over 800. To add to the controversy of the evening Arthur McQuaid, President of West Milford Republicans, revealed he had studied the petition and found councilman Nolan had signed it twice as had fellow Democrat Bob Pawlo. The act was resoundingly rejected by the four Republican council members with only Nolan left to support it. After the meeting Gargano explained the duplicate signatures, “It’s was just a simple mistake. I asked Bob [Nolan] to countersign the bottom of a sheet and that might appear that he signed it twice. We have over 1,100 signatures and we only needed 809 so we hardly needed to do that.” Despite the defeat in council, the act is not dead. The electorate will have the opportunity to voice its opinion on the Sunshine proposals in a referendum question at the next election. The act’s proponents are now left to go lick their wounds. “We learn every day,” said Rauth after the meeting. Gargano said, “We’re not going to put a wall up and say we didn’t hear your concerns. How willing though are other members of the town council to help us implement it.” The committee of petitioners have until September 1 to decide if they wish to withdraw their proposals. If not, the act will appear on the ballot in November.