Diamond Chip sues Sparta for $100M
SPARTA. Mayor says suit will be decided in court, not council chamber.
Sparta /
| 26 Apr 2025 | 08:16
A $100 million federal lawsuit against Sparta will be decided in a courtroom, Mayor Neill Clark told residents at the Township Council meeting April 8.
”It will not be decided by statements that we make here. It will not be decided by stunts that some of the attorneys make try to pull in this forum. ...
“We will speak through our attorneys through filings in the court.”
Clark said officials must balance a desire to be transparent with limits on public discussion of active litigation. “When it comes to active litigation, we speak through our attorneys and we speak in the court.”
Diamond Chip Realty, which in 2021 applied to build a rail-dependent warehouse at 33 Demarest Road, filed the suit March 24.
In addition to Sparta, it names the Township Council, Planning Board, the mayor and council members, the township attorney, the nonprofit organization Sparta Responsible Development (SRD), the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, and anonymous people and corporations as defendants.
At the Township Council meeting March 25, Frank Vitolo, an attorney who represents Diamond Chip, accused Clark, township attorney Anand Dash, the Planning Board, Township Council members, SRD and others of engaging “in an illegal conspiracy to delay, obstruct and defeat the Diamond Chip application” during the past four years.
“You have repeatedly tried to force the Diamond Chip application to the Zoning Board by characterizing the project as a trucking terminal even though your own attorneys and planners testified that it was not,” he said.
The suit alleges that the defendants violated Diamond Chip’s constitutional and civil rights to a fair hearing, tortiously interferred with its business opportunities and violated Internal Revenue Service rules “by using SRD as a political machine to churn out conflicted Sparta elected officials and board members.”
On April 8, Clark said the township is hiring attorneys to handle the suit.
”The taxpayers of Sparta will be very well-represented as well as the people who have been sued.”