When 4101 Bridgeboro Road came up for sale in 2019, several parties showed interest in purchasing the property, which included Delran’s former Council President and current Mayor, Gary Catrambone, as well as Dunphy Landscaping. Catrambone admitted that the town had an interest in buying the property so they could preserve open space and also to give a home to the Delran Historical Society, an organization that Catrambone helped found over a decade ago. The property at 4101 Bridgeboro Road was once owned by the Garwood Family, which included Delran’s first Mayor, Robert F. Garwood, giving it the historical significance that would make a great home for any Historical Society.

The Township couldn’t purchase the property right away though, and the owner instead sold it to 4101 Bridgeboro Road LLC in October of 2019, to be used as the home of Dunphy’s Landscaping. 4101 Bridgeboro Road had significance to Dunphy as well, especially considering that it was in the same A1 zone that 4 other landscaping companies existed in, so Dunphy thought it was a perfect home for his business. Delran originally issued a permit to Dunphy Landscaping to operate, but something changed about 2 weeks later when the Township began to demand that Dunphy needed to file paperwork with the township that was not being required of any of the 4 other companies that had been operating in the same zone for years, one even being directly across the street from the 4101 Bridgeboro Road location.

Even though the things being demanded of Dunphy were not being demanded of others, Dunphy, through his attorney, tried to comply, yet in January of 2020 the Township’s Zoning Officer, Ted Reimel, pulled Dunphy’s permits. When Dunphy asked why he was doing so, Reimel replied that “He doesn’t want to get in the middle of it” and that “I only have five years left”, which left Dunphy confused. When Reimel pulled Dunphy’s permit, he rendered the property useless, and the Township even made him clear all of his own equipment from the property.

Dunphy filed for a variance that was finally heard on June 30th of 2020, at a hearing where only one Township official spoke, now Council Person and Former Zoning Board member, Lynn Jenney. Along with Jenney speaking, two of the detractors to speak were PJ Buzzi Jr, and Julie Weimer, who both live close to 4101 Bridgeboro Road. PJ Buzzi Jr is the VP of the Delran Historical Society, which is the same organization that Catrambone founded and also the one that was set to benefit if the Township acquired 4101 Bridgeboro Road as their new home. Prior to the hearing Buzzi submitted a 14 page letter to the Zoning Board and he had also distributed fliers to the neighborhood calling Dunphy’s Landscaping an “illegal business” and asking for people to come out and fight against them.

Even though the evidence that was submitted by Dunphy’s attorney’s was more than enough to overturn the decision to pull their permits and grant the variance, the Zoning Board, headed by Lynn Jenney, denied the variance on the grounds that landscaping companies were not a permitted use in the A1 zone. Now remember, at this point 4 other landscaping companies were operating in the same A1 zone, so how could Jenney claim it was not a permitted use? To add insult to injury, just 17 days after Delran’s Zoning Board denied Dunphy’s variance on the grounds that Landscaping companies were not authorized to operate in that zone, the Delran Zoning Board, headed by Lynn Jenney, approved another landscaping company to operate in the same A1 zone.

At this point Dunphy’s property had been useless to him for almost a year, so in a last ditch effort, he filed an appeal of the variance hearing in Burlington County Superior Court on September 1st of 2020. The representatives from the town’s insurance company say that this is the point where they should have alerted the insurer, but they failed to do so, resulting in the later denial of the claim. The week after Dunphy filed his appeal, the Delran Township Council, headed by then Council President Gary Catrambone, had a closed session meeting to discuss the acquisition of a property in town. When a citizen asked which property was being considered, Catrambone refused to say the address, but from emails garnered in OPRA requests it was discovered that the property that they were discussing acquiring was in fact Dunphy’s property. Just a couple of days later the Township offered to buy Dunphy’s property, the same property that the Zoning Board had rendered useless, in an offer they thought Dunphy couldn’t refuse, but he did.

That November of 2020 Catrambone was elected as Mayor and his running mate, Lynn Jenney, was elected to Town Council, which meant Jenney had to resign his position on the Zoning Board. Just a month later as Dunphy’s appeal was winding it’s way through the courts and survived several motions to attempt to have the case dismissed, Mayor elect Catrambone was caught trespassing on Dunphy’s property taking pictures to turn into the court to try and hurt Dunphy’s chance of appeal. When he was confronted, Dunphy alleged that Catrambone claimed that he was there to take pictures at the request of the Township’s Solicitor, Sal Siciliano. Catrambone quickly walked away and walked across the street, where he was picked up by the VP of the Delran Historical Society, PJ Buzzi.

At this point, Dunphy wanted to learn more of what was happening to him, so he made a call to the woman he purchased the property from, Kitty Newman. Dunphy alleges that Newman told him that when she told Catrambone that she was thinking of selling the property to Dunphy, Catrambone replied that Dunphy would never get a permit to operate and she let Dunphy know about Catrambone’s interest to buy the property, something that up until this point, Dunphy had no idea of. Superior Court Judge Jeanne Covert heard the appeal of the variance on January 14th of 2021, ruling that the Township illegally denied Dunphy’s variance and acted in a completely arbitrary and capricious manner in doing so, overturning the denial of the variance.

Delran’s new council and Mayor met just 2 weeks later and held a closed session meeting to discuss “litigation regarding 4101 Bridgeboro Road”. On February 2nd Delran again held a meeting to discuss “Litigation Settlement Discussions-4101 Bridgeboro Road”, which shows pretty clearly that the town was already in discussions with Dunphy’s attorney’s regarding the pending lawsuit that was about to be filed, yet that is not the story the Township told the insurance company.

The insurance company says that the Township claims that they were first alerted of the potential litigation on March 12th of 2021, which was the same day that the Township reached out to the insurance company and also the day Delran filed an appeal of Judge Covert’s decision to overturn the variance. Three days after Delran filed for the appeal, Dunphy’s attorney’s sent a letter to the court requesting that Solicitor Siciliano be sanctioned. The insurance company is of the position that the Township should have reached out to them back in September of 2020 when the Dunphy first filed his appeal, but instead of doing so, they were offering to buy Dunphy’s property, so on April 9th of 2021, the insurance company denied the claim. The Township threatened arbitration on the matter and instead of fight with the Town, the insurer gave $75,000 in what Council called a “kickback”.

The Council approved the $300,000 tax payer funded settlement at the May 4th of 2021 Council meeting, reading a statement into the record that was never posted online and with a written resolution that didn’t include the amount of the settlement. It was not until Rabble Rouser Media began our investigation into the township that the citizens of Delran ever learned about the settlement. It was hidden in what can only be called a cover up.

Just a month after the settlement was paid to the Dunphy’s, a complaint was received by the Township from Bryan and Julie Weimer regarding Dunphy Landscaping. Even though the case had already been settled and a court already ruled on the case, Catrambone let them know that the township was trying to find ways to enforce the laws against Dunphy. On June 8th of 2021, Mayor Catrambone and Council Person Lynn Jenney, paid a visit to the Weimer’s to discuss how they can be of help regarding their issues with the Dunphy property. It seems though that the Weimers had already been helping Catrambone, because they sent several drone images of Dunphy’s property in an April 19th of 2021 email that was sent to Catrambone. So not only was Catrambone playing detective at 4101 Bridgeboro Road, so were the Weimers.

On September 24th of 2021 a call was made to Delran police from Dunphy’s landscaping regarding constant harassment from one of the neighbors. The neighbor is not named but their address is, which is none other than the address of the Weimers.

The settlement with the Dunphy’s was negotiated by the Mayor and the Solicitor, both of whom were surely to be named as defendants in the potential litigation, the same litigation that would have also named the zoning board and it’s members, which included both Marlowe Smith and Lynn Jenney. All 4 interested parties should have recused themselves from the discussions and voting, yet they didn’t, they instead avoided proper insurance filing requirements and used tax payers dollars to cover their misdeeds and thought it would never see the light of day again. Sadly for them though, they had one hell of a party with fireworks that brought the Rabble Rouser to town who took the covers off of the crooks and exposed the corruption. Just another story, from where the sun don’t shine!