RAHWAY – Mayor Rick Proctor was fined $750 last week for soliciting a donation to help pay off an earlier fine for campaign finance reporting violations.
Clark Municipal Court Judge Antonio Inacio determined that Proctor violated a municipal ordinance against soliciting donations on municipal property when he approached a representative from the Birdsall Engineering Group of Cranford in the city hall parking lot in 2011 and asked if the representative could make a $7,000 donation.
Proctor testified that he only asked if Birdsall would be eligible to make a donation.
Rahway Council President Samson Steinman filed the complaint against Proctor.
In 2010, the state election Law Enforcement Commission fined the Rahway Democratic Committee $55,000 for late filings of campaign finance reports from 2006. Proctor was the chairman of the committee at the time.
Proctor is due back in court on Friday for another matter. A state administrative law judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on an ethics complaint against the mayor. The state Local Finance Board alleges Proctor violated ethics rules and attempted to interfere in the civil service hiring process to get his wife a six-figure salary position as the city health officer in 2011.
