City Clerk

City Clerk James M. Reynolds must appear in Municipal Court on Feb. 21 to face a charge of simple assault filed by a political adversary, Deborah Polk, an assistant city business administrator. In a complaint filed on Wednesday, Polk alleged that Reynolds attempted to cause bodily injury to her by using both of his hands to push her right shoulder during the City Council's caucus on Tuesday. "I had heels on and fell back," and Reynolds "also did use profanity towards me," Polk said in the complaint.

A former city clerk was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for a record-keeping scam that netted her nearly $186,000 and cost Philadelphia more than $600,000 in fees. Kelly Kaufmann Layre, 39, pleaded guilty in September to selling police, accident, and fire reports to three people at a discount in exchange for cash bribes. The coconspirators also have pleaded guilty. The scam lasted from 2006 to 2010, while Layre was working in the police reports unit of the Records Department, authorities said.

The records room clerk at the city Detention Center was hooked on a $500-a- day drug habit when an accused killer offered her $7,000 to help him escape, the clerk's lawyer said. Sherrilyn "Tracey" Morton, stepdaughter of Phillip Dukes, deputy superintendent of prisons, accepted the offer in March 1990, then used a prison computer to reduce Jimmy Ruiz's bail from $350,000 to $10,000. Ruiz was released, but showed up in court for his trial. Because he was on bail, he was allowed to come and go as the case proceeded in November.

Dorothy "Dot" Burley, a longtime soldier in the Camden city Democratic Party, was sworn in yesterday as the new city clerk. Burley, 50, a Camden resident, was sworn in to the $45,847-a-year job in an hour-long ceremony in the Council chambers packed with close to 100 well- wishers. She replaces John Odorisio, who retired Dec. 31 after serving 38 years as the city clerk. Camden Municipal Court Judge James Faison administered the oath, which was followed by a number of testimonials from friends, politicians and family, including Burley's mother, Lucille Boyd.

Keith Aaron Walker said yesterday that he is still in the race to become Camden's next mayor and will go to court Monday to fight to get his name on the ballot. "I am not out of this race," Walker said, leaning back in his chair and puffing on a cigar in his campaign office. "I intend to be mayor of Camden . . .. " Walker, 43, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, missed the filing deadline for a place on the ballot by three minutes on Thursday. Walker arrived at the City Clerk's office with his two councilmanic running mates, businessman Dave Garrison and the Rev. Chris Collins, and his petitions and related documents at 4:03 p.m., according to the city clerk.

Mayoral candidate Keith Aaron Walker and his two City Council running mates have won their legal battle to get on the May 8 ballot. The only hurdle left is for Municipal Clerk Luis Pastoriza to certify their petitions, which he refused to do March 15. Pastoriza rejected the petitions because he said that the three candidates arrived three minutes past the 4 p.m. deadline. Yesterday, Superior Court Judge M. Alan Vogelson ruled that the city clerk must accept Walker's petitions, as well as those of his running mates, businessman David Garrison and the Rev. Christopher Collins.

The new, reform-minded City Council must decide on Monday the fate of City Clerk Dorothy "Dot" Burley, who had not met state-mandated certification requirements when her three-year appointment ended last week. Two members of Council - the two who are not part of the faction that now holds a majority - said yesterday they believed that the five who will now control Council were inclined to replace Burley. Burley, 53, a longtime worker in the Camden Democratic Party, cannot be immediately reappointed to another three-year term Monday when the new council is sworn in because she failed to obtain a certificate required by the state to act as a registered municipal clerk.

Mayor Mary Sheridan ran this hamlet on the Delaware River single-handedly for 50 years without a word of complaint from anybody, thank you. Then, a couple of young fellows from the state came snooping around, sticking their noses into the shoeboxes stuffed with receipts, asking a lot of prying questions about missing pension funds, unauthorized bank accounts and the like, and, next thing you know, everyone on the City Council wants to have his...

Public smoking is now prohibited in the municipal buildings in Burlington City after the passage of a resolution by city council last week to comply with state law. "Employees are permitted to smoke in two lounges, both on the second floor of city hall," said city clerk David Vechesky, "and one lounge at the (former) Stacy School," which houses additional city departments. "There is no smoking at all for the general public" in the two buildings, Vechesky said. He said city employees were furnished copies of the resolution and there were no complaints.

Gloucester City has asked Trenton for a 30-day extension before it unveils this year's budget to the public because city officials have been unable to reconcile proposed expenditures and revenues. Declining to say how much money the city's finance committee has been talking about in its draft version of the budget, city clerk Tom Kilcourse said this week that the largest proposed increases are in salaries, insurance premiums and sanitation costs. "What do you do? You get an eraser," Kilcourse said.

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. - Moonshine distillers are making their first batches of legal liquor in this tiny Georgia town's city hall, not far from the mountains and the maroon, orange, and gold canopy of trees that once hid bootleggers from the law. A handful of moonshine distilleries are scattered around the South, but observers say this is the first time they've ever seen one in a city hall. The distilleries are part of a trend spurred by increased interest in the United States for locally made specialty spirits and beer brewed in homes and microbreweries.

A Superior Court judge Monday temporarily blocked a planned Camden City Council vote that ultimately could put in the hands of voters a decision on whether to dismantle the city's police department in favor of a county force. Judge Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina decided to hear arguments June 11 on a complaint filed by Mayor Dana L. Redd and President Frank Moran that maintaining the department could cause the city "irreparable harm. " He issued an order preventing the city clerk from certifying before the Council a petition with more than 2,000 signatures requesting that Council vote on a proposed ordinance to maintain the department and, if the ordinance is rejected, the voters would get to decide what to do. A vote had been scheduled for Tuesday.

A campaign to let Camden residents decide the fate of a controversial takeover of the city's police department by Camden County hit a roadblock Wednesday when the city filed an injunction seeking to block the referendum. In a complaint filed in Superior Court, Camden attorneys argued that the decision whether to implement the plan is not up to voters and is within the sole authority of city and state officials. The action comes three weeks after police-union officials and community activists submitted a petition with 2,800 signatures calling for an ordinance to block the police takeover, arguing it was a union-busting maneuver that would make the city unsafe by replacing veteran police with younger, inexperienced officers.

Former Indiana Rep. Katie Hall, 73, one of the sponsors of the 1983 legislation that established a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. Rep. Hall's husband, John Henry Hall, said she died Monday in Gary from an undisclosed illness. He said his wife's work on the bill to make Martin Luther King's Birthday a national holiday was her proudest accomplishment. Katie Hall, who was Indiana's first black member in the U.S. House, got her start in politics working for the election of Richard Hatcher as mayor of Gary in 1967, when he became one of the first black mayors of big U.S. city.

OCEAN CITY - Proponents of allowing customers to bring their own bottle of wine or beer to restaurants in this historically alcohol-free Jersey Shore resort delivered a petition containing 583 signatures to the city clerk on Thursday afternoon that, if certified, would mean a question would be placed on the November ballot about whether to allow such imbibing in public. BYOB, and the sale of alcohol of any kind, has never been allowed in this Cape May County town, founded in 1879 as a Methodist camp meeting resort by the Lake brothers.

A former city clerk was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for a record-keeping scam that netted her nearly $186,000 and cost Philadelphia more than $600,000 in fees. Kelly Kaufmann Layre, 39, pleaded guilty in September to selling police, accident, and fire reports to three people at a discount in exchange for cash bribes. The coconspirators also have pleaded guilty. The scam lasted from 2006 to 2010, while Layre was working in the police reports unit of the Records Department, authorities said.

Circuit City clerk Brian Morgenstern recalls his ah-ha feeling the day he saw federal authorities on television news saying they had foiled a jihadist plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. An FBI leader was lauding an "unsung hero" who tipped authorities to a videotape showing men firing machine guns and shouting in Arabic. Morgenstern, 23, wondered: Could that be me? Now he knows. In a whirlwind of media interviews yesterday that began with an appearance on CNN's American Morning, Morgenstern told how he was torn between what he thought might be a terror threat and the privacy of the two "normal-looking" men who had come to the Mount Laurel store asking that he transfer the contents of a videotape to a DVD. "I thought it might turn into something big, but 16 months went past and then I thought it might be like a lead or an anonymous tip that didn't pan out," Morgenstern said yesterday from his hotel in New York.

The results of Camden's June 14 mayoral and City Council runoff election still are not final. It is not exactly a case of hanging or dimpled chads, but the City Clerk's Office yesterday petitioned a state Superior Court judge to reopen the voting machines to recheck the count. Clerk Luis Pastoriza said yesterday that he was unable to certify the totals because of "inconsistences in the return sheets. " Bad math seems to have been the problem in some cases. Uncertified results in the nonpartisan vote, including 316 provisional and 147 absentee ballots, showed Mayor Gwendolyn Faison winning reelection, 4,831 to 4,476, over Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez.

A year after being rescued from the floor of a dimly lit room in City Hall, Lord Camden is still waiting for his big makeover. The frayed, flaking oil portrait of the British aristocrat, who gave Camden its name, was transferred last October from a Council anteroom to the Camden County Historical Society for safekeeping. From there, the image of His Lordship - in a flowing wig and fur-lined robe - was to be moved to a conservator's studio for a $5,000 refurbishing. But Lord Camden's subjects have raised only a couple of hundred dollars, leaving him still a lord-in-waiting.

Poor Lord Camden. The oil portrait of the British aristocrat, who gave the city its name, had hung in Council's chambers for more than 60 years, slowly deteriorating while the city conducted its business. Then came the final indignity. The flaking, frayed image of His Lordship - resplendent in a flowing wig and fur-lined robe - was taken down in the late 1980s and left on the floor of a dim Council anteroom. And that was where it had remained, propped against a wall along with folding tables and chairs, until its rediscovery last winter during the renovation of Council's chambers.