Toms River, NJ – If you’re on Facebook these days, you might have seen a few pages dedicated to making Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick look bad. While these pages claim they are seeking transparency, the backers of those pages, including Toms River Residents Uniting Everyone, have remained anonymous.
Until now.
While some tried to mock Mayor Rodrick for saying the poltical opposition against him was being funded and driven by the “Mo Hill Gang”, new state reports filed by the group have proven the mayor’s point.
Reports filed by the Toms River Residents Uniting Everyone PAC with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission show that the page is almost entirely funded by former Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill, Silverton EMS Director Kevin Geoghegan and embattled Toms River MUA commissioner Phillip Brilliant.
Campaign finance records show that a political action committee opposing Mayor Rodrick is backed by a small group of Mo Hill-aligned political insiders, aka “The Mo Hill Gang” with filings revealing specific dollar amounts and renewed attention on the role of Municipal Utilities Authority commissioner Philip Brilliant.
While it claims to represent the people of Toms River, the reality is that it is just a small group of political insiders attempting to falsely magnify ‘controversies’ in Toms River for their own political gain.
With a small handful of followers online, “TRRUE” describes its mission as “to be a catalyst for positive change in Toms River by mobilizing residents to participate in the democratic process, holding elected officials accountable, and promoting a culture of transparency and openness.”
These reports filed by the Political Action Committee provide transparency they don’t offer to their few followers.
According to New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission disclosures, former Toms River mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill donated $530 to the PAC. Hill, listed in the filings as retired, is among several individual contributors whose names appear alongside business-linked donations.
Funded by business owner that filed bankruptcy
The largest source of support tied to a single individual comes from Philip Brilliant, a local business owner and current commissioner on the Toms River Municipal Utilities Authority. ELEC records show Brilliant made $655 in personal monetary contributions, while the bankrupted Brilliant Environmental Services, LLC provided $2,312.62 in in-kind contributions during the fall reporting period.
Those in-kind contributions are recorded as services rather than direct cash. Together, the filings place Hill, Brilliant and his company among the PAC’s only significant supporters.
Brilliant has also been the driving force behind the anti-Rodrick movement.
He was a leading voice behind a failed recall effort targeting Rodrick. That recall push emerged after Rodrick publicly raised the idea of disbanding the Toms River Municipal Utilities Authority, a move that would have eliminated the authority itself and the benefits tied to Brilliant’s service on its board.
The PAC has also been funded by former Toms River Councilman Kevin Geoghegan, whose now-defunct Silverton EMS squad is being sued by the Township for alleged theft over hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and healthcare billing services.
As an MUA commissioner, Brilliant still receives health care coverage through the authority, a benefit available to commissioners who attend meetings that typically last about one hour per month. The timing of the recall effort and Rodrick’s comments about dissolving the MUA have been widely discussed in local political circles.
Beyond Hill and Brilliant, the PAC’s filings list several smaller donations from Toms River residents, including individuals identified as retired or employed in education.
Key points:
• Former mayor Mo Hill donated $530 to Toms River Residents Uniting Everyone, according to ELEC records.
• Philip Brilliant and his company provided more than $2,900 combined in personal and in-kind contributions.
• Brilliant was a leader of a failed recall effort against Councilman Dan Rodrick that followed Rodrick’s call to disband the MUA.