A marked Clark Township fire command SUV turned up at the Jersey Shore towing a jet ski trailer this summer, and the township's response has reopened a long-simmering fight over how Clark officials use public resources. Business Administrator Jim Ulrich drove the vehicle to his home in Ship Bottom, and Mayor Angel Albanese says the trip broke no rules at all.
According to NJ.com, Ulrich said his usual employee vehicle was in the shop at the time, and Albanese gave him full approval to use the fire command SUV instead. Albanese maintains there was nothing improper or out of policy about the arrangement. Clark's employer vehicle policy allows incidental personal use of a vehicle at an employee's professional discretion when the use is reasonable and practicable, while separately prohibiting use of employee vehicles for travel or activity unrelated to town business, per the same policy.
Clark residents have pushed back, claiming the SUV's trip to the shore violated rules requiring that employee vehicles be used only in an official capacity. Town official Albert Cruz has defended the trip, saying Ulrich is always on-call and that the fire command SUV was a spare vehicle typically not used that particular weekend. Cruz reiterated that the town permits incidental personal use when it is reasonable and practicable, but Clark officials have not stated what official use, if any, applied to towing the jet ski trailer itself.
A Deleted Photo and a Records Request That Hit a Wall
The episode first surfaced after Clark published a photo of the SUV and jet ski trailer in a Facebook post on July 5, 2026, which was later deleted, the station's report notes. That came just two days after the township's volunteer fire department had responded to more than 60 storm-related calls on July 3, handling downed wires, blocked roadways, and fallen trees that struck houses and apartment buildings.
Albanese confirmed at an Aug. 17 council meeting that the vehicle matter had been investigated. The day after that meeting, Stronger Clark member John Greaves filed an Open Public Records Act request seeking documentation, but the township reported no responsive files to release. Albanese's response was blunt, per the outlet's account: if the records do not exist, they do not exist.
That records dead end lands amid a tightened statewide OPRA landscape. Governor Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 2930 in June 2024, a reform that eliminated mandatory attorney fee awards for successful requesters and let agencies seek protective court orders against requesters deemed to substantially interrupt municipal operations, according to NJ Spotlight News. Separately, New Jersey Administrative Code § 12:16-4.12 specifies that personal use of an employer-provided vehicle beyond de minimis stops must be reported as taxable income or else assessed at the highest regulatory rate.
Council Candidate Calls Out a Pattern
Michael Decker, a sergeant with the Essex County Sheriff's Office, raised the SUV issue at a Sept. 8 council meeting, arguing that Clark officials show a fundamental lack of respect for taxpayer resources. Decker said the stated explanation only raises the question of how the SUV's use qualifies as official business. He is campaigning for a Clark Township Council Ward 4 seat with the Democratic slate Stronger Clark, which has built its platform around government transparency, tax levy accountability, and developer tax abatements.
Decker has said his research into Clark's past controversies has hampered his faith in government and elected officials, a sentiment that traces back further than one jet ski trailer. Former Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, who led Clark for more than two decades, was sentenced in 2025 to three years of probation and a $15,000 fine after pleading guilty to misusing public resources and forging documents to benefit his private landscaping business, according to the New Jersey Attorney General's Office. He also received a lifetime ban from holding public office in New Jersey as part of his plea.
A Township Still Living Down a Bigger Scandal
Bonaccorso's downfall grew out of an even deeper controversy. Clark officials paid $400,000 to a whistleblower in the late 2010s to avoid a lawsuit after accusations surfaced that Bonaccorso, the town's then-police chief, and an internal-affairs supervisor had used racial slurs, a settlement first detailed by the Washington Post. That episode has continued to reverberate, as the New Jersey Attorney General's Office and Division on Civil Rights filed a civil lawsuit against Clark Township, Bonaccorso, and police leadership in January 2026, alleging systemic racial profiling and directives instructing officers to keep Black people out of town, as reported by the Associated Press.
Albanese, who served on the Clark Township Council for more than 20 years before becoming mayor in January 2025 following Bonaccorso's resignation, now leads a township still grappling with the financial fallout of that era. A New Jersey Superior Court judge cleared the way in December 2025 for disciplinary proceedings to terminate suspended Clark Police Chief Pedro Matos and Sgt. Joseph Teston, who had collected more than $2.6 million in combined taxpayer-funded salaries while on paid leave since 2020, according to Complex.
Against that backdrop, Clark's estimated 2026 municipal tax levy sits at $21,493,257.47, with residential property owners carrying roughly 80% of the township's overall tax burden, per township records. For critics like Decker, the jet ski trailer is less about one SUV and more about whether Clark's leadership can be trusted to account for taxpayer resources at all.
