It was in February, 2022, that I got an e-mail from an attorney from a Springfield firm, one of many e-mails I receive on regular basis from people from all walks of life. Unlike some, this one was nice and friendly. Ethics
“Hi Muriel,
My name is Christine Magee, and I have seen your articles on the Highlands school district regionalization on various news sites. I found your contact information on your blog site and was wondering if you have heard any further updates regarding whether the Highlands or Sea Bright have submitted their petition to the Commissioner of Education for authorization to hold the referendum on the creation of the all-purpose school district. It is a story we are interested in following. Please feel free to give me a call at 973-232-5291 if you like. Thanks so much for your time! It was signed
Christine Magee, Associate, Machado Law Group
But I did not know at the time that Machado was the law group representing Oceanport in its lawsuit against Sea Bright. I had done previous stories, noting minutes showed Machado was hired in 2021 for a term expiring in January, 2022, but there were no minutes that showed Machado was continued in January, 2022 for another year.
Yet my OPRA revealed Machado had been paid thousands, including almost $12,000 in June 2022, for “Sea Bright legal services.”
Apparently, Christine Magee, the attorney in the Law Group, did not think it was important enough when asking me questions about the regionalization issue, to inform me, a reporter, she is a member of the firm representing an involved party.
Expecting someone to identify themselves when contacting me isn’t an ego trip. It isn’t any expectation that if someone asks me a question, I should know their life history before I answer it. That is not the point.
The point is;
Ethics;
Moral principle;
A person’s behavior;
Ms. Magee is an attorney!
An attorney making money off the taxpayers for every single e-mail she writes for her client.
She took a course in ethics before getting her degree. She should be open and honest with people, not try to go sneaky and underhanded to get information she can use against her adversary.
As a friendly helpful journalist, I continued e-mail correspondence with Christine,
for four months. That’s when I learned about the Sea Bright Legal Services bills from June. Never did my friend Christine tell me she was representing the law firm in the regionalization issue.
In one of the emails, I shared that Atlantic Highlands had a situation where the husband of the board of education president was on the borough council to which Christine replied, “ Interesting. I didn’t realize AH could have two potential recusals as well. I wonder if the delay in AH rests in part on their spouse’s commenting on the same. “But no mention she was involved in the litigation.
In the article I wrote when I learned of all this, I opined “Cynical though I may be as a reporter, I also have a high regard for attorneys. It would never occur to me that a professional, especially a women in the legal field since they have worked so hard to achieve equality there, would continue a conversation about some legal matters in which her law firm was involved without letting me know that indeed, that is why our friendly conversations started in the first place.”
The point is;
Ethics;
Moral principle;
A person’s behavior;
It was in April 2022 that I learned the attorney was at the Highlands council meeting because she wrote, referring to the public portion of the meeting when I had addressed the governing body, “I thought your question was great, but it seems odd that they were not able to answer such a simple question as the timeline. It will be interesting to see how this matter progresses.”
To which I responded: “Ah, wish you had introduced yourself to me. Do you live here?
The response to my question?
Christine Magee, a member of the Machado Law Firm which the Oceanport Board of Education says is its official board attorney, even without a resolution at reorganization saying that, responded “I am from Plainsboro, but I work for an education law firm. So I am just interested to see how this all plays out.”
The point is;
Ethics;
Moral principle;
A person’s behavior;
Although at the time, since she had not identified herself as an attorney at the meeting, I did not whether the law firm was reimbursed for her presence there. Nor did I know whether she charged me for all the e-mails she sent me, or for the time it took her to read the ones I sent to her. I still did not know I was talking to a paid professional involved in the regionalization issue.
Now, after yet another OPRA with all the bills from the Machado Law Group in hand, during August 2022, Oceanport paid the Machado Group $7854.00 for regionalization issues, Of that total, there were approximately a dozen and a half billed by Ms. Magee for reading, reviewing writing e-mails, all for 15 minutes or $41.25 each.
There were three bills for Ms. Magee to attend meetings, one of them only 15 minutes long, the other two each more than an hour and a half long for a total of $495. With the purposes or locations of the meetings redacted, it is impossible for a citizen to whether any were for meetings with me, or with anyone else in which she did not identify herself as an attorney representing the firm in regionalization.
The point is;
Ethics;
Moral principle;
A person’s behavior;
It’s something Oceanport board members would know about and could have questioned before approving the payments.
However, they were all paid by unanimous vote of the Oceanport Board of Education, the members would have seen the bills without redactions. They would have seen to whom the e-mails were written, the meetings that were attended by Ms. Magee, and the time she spent reviewing and repairing.
Did no one even ask who the person was she was charging them to talk to?
Or what had to do with the question of regionalization?
It’s the same questions that every board member should ask of every attorney for whom they are paying $165 and more an hour.
It’s a question the brand-new Henry Hudson Regional School Board of Education should adopt as its routine policy when they begin their terms as the first elected representatives of the people on this new board of education.
As for Ms. Magee and not identifying herself to someone she well knew had a well read blog, for decades, journalists have always been charged with a lack of ethics. They have forever been charged with coloring the news, with slanting it to one side, or covering up something the public should know. For decades, it was the rare journalist who was guilty of this lack of ethics. In many cases, it was the fault of the reader who does not know the difference between an editorial, which clearly is an opinion, and a news story, which should not reflect an opinion, simply tell the news like it is.
Sadly, that, too, is gone. With newspapers going away, and the few left standing owned by publishers who clearly dictate the manner their papers are run, ethics in journalism has also taken a deep dive. Media, be it written, viewed or spoken, definitely colors the truth, takes a stand and offers only one side of an issue in many cases. For me, it is shameful that reporters subject to editors who are subject to the will of the owners, are told how to write their stories. For the ethical journalist, it is not a good time.
But for an attorney in a field that has been around since the orators of ancient Athens were first accused of taking money from their friends for solving an issue for them, it is even more shameful, more frightening and more disgusting.
Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics Ethics
