Prosecutors who deal with corruption cases will tell you that taxpayers pay a premium of anywhere from 5% to 40% as a result of New Jersey's infamous pay-to-play culture.
"The fact is that the residents of New Jersey pay for the misdeeds of government decision-makers by paying in effect, a “corruption tax.”" -- Jon Corzine (more here).
Plainfield is no exception.
That is money that finds its way -- legally -- into the campaign accounts of machine politicians running for everything from City Council to the state Assembly and Senate. And illegally, into the pockets of pols throughout the state who haven't any ethical sense.
But even when it is 'legal', pay-to-play functions as a 'corruption tax' that burdens Plainfield taxpayers, you included.
How?
Mainly through three methods: patronage hiring, inflated costs, and shoddy work.
PATRONAGE HIRING
If you've been a fan of City Council meetings in recent years, you will have noticed that very few contracts go out to bid any more. Open public bidding was devised many years ago to correct the abuses of Boss Tweed-type machines controlling local politics just doling out public monies to their friends and supporters. An irony of the supposed 'pay-to-play' ordinance that the Council passed under the Robinson-Briggs administration is that a list of vendors is vetted, adopted by the Council and -- Presto! -- public bidding is circumvented. Nice trick, huh?
Think Remington & Vernick, the politically juiced South Jersey engineering firm you never heard of before Assemblyman Green got hundreds of thousands of dollars 'wheeled' to him to pay for the election of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs. Money that came from South Jersey pols, with whom Remington & Vernick is entwined. Thanks to votes by Jerry's City Council, you not only have them as City engineers, you pay for their hotel stays when they have to overnight away from home in order to huddle with Administration biggies the morning after Planning Board meetings. Can you say 'corruption tax'?
INFLATED COSTS
So, now that we have gotten rid of public bidding and have the vendor who has paid for the privilege in place, what next?
The vendor will study 'em and change-order 'em to death, that's what.
Engineers love to bill taxpayers for 'studying' the community's problems. Consider the road rebuilding program adopted by the Council when Adrian Mapp was its leader. That perfectly adequate plan has been 'restudied' by the new engineering firm (Remington & Vernick) -- of course, as billable hours. You can bet your bottom dollar any changes are cosmetic. But you will pay -- dearly -- for them.
And once work on infrastructure projects begins, vendors have the change-order route, adjusting the agreed-upon prices as projects go along -- always for a 'justified' reason, of course.
Always reminds me of the lady who ran the Red & White grocery at the crossroads near where I grew up. She routinely put her thumb on the scale when weighing your hamburger or sliced cold cuts.
SHODDY WORK
Under Remington & Vernick, you may have witnessed their hired hand trying to hustle a redevelopment plan by portraying a mattress in the street as a sign of blight, justifying declaring an area 'in need of redevelopment'. The Planning Board sent him packing on that one. Is it any coincidence that some of the members involved in that fracas were not reappointed by the Robinson-Briggs administration -- to which the Council responded by meekly accepting the new, presumably more amenable appointments?
Another incident sticks in my memory.
There was, when I was still employed by the City, a vendor who Jerry Green foisted on Mayor McWilliams -- to the tune of a 'retainer' fee of $5,000 per month for a year's contract -- who was supposed to find grant monies for city programs.
Working late one evening, I heard the fax machine several cubicles over alerting that it had run out of paper while receiving a fax. Going over to reload the paper tray, I found over a hundred faxed pages strewn on the floor, having filled the in-tray and then spilling over. Picking them up and looking for the cover sheet, I discovered that the hundred-plus pages (including copious copies of newspaper articles, handwritten notes, and copies of emails) were a submission package for a grant application whose deadline was the next day. Talk about shoddy work! Need I say the City never got the grant?
(Interestingly, today's Bergen Record carries a story of U.S. Attorney Chris Christie starting a criminal investigation of Bergen County Dem kingpin Joe Ferreiro, for just the same sort of scheme.
A consulting firm linked to Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero and politically connected lawyer Dennis J. Oury raked in $11,000 in fees for securing a $50,000 state grant for Lyndhurst, according to township records obtained Thursday.Read more here.)
The firm, Governmental Grants Consulting, billed the township for an initial $6,000 retainer fee, plus 10 percent — or $5,000 — of the overall grant amount, after the money was secured in 2003.
Lastly, a majority of this City Council voted to hand over its responsibilities for redevelopment projects to the Union County Improvement Authority -- one of those agencies that Jon Corzine characterized as New Jersey's "invisible government" -- where the cylce of patronage hiring, inflated costs, and shoddy work is continued on a higher level and with even less public scrutiny. (Except, of course, that the UCIA's executive director, Charlotte deFilippo is currently under investigation by the Attorney General's office.)
ONLY YOU...
Isn't it time to get rid of Plainfield's 'corruption tax'?
Annie McWilliams and Adrian Mapp are truly grassroots candidates, not beholden to any pay-to-play vendors. When you put them on the Council, they will be there to guard against the picking of the taxpayers' pocket that the 'corruption tax' represents.
But first, you must put them on the City Council.
I woke up this morning with Elvis singing in my head (Why? I'm NOT an Elvis fan, and it was THE PLATTERS who own the song.) --
Only you can make this world seem rightThat is why I am asking you to join me in voting for Annie McWilliams (6E) and Adrian Mapp (7E) on Tuesday, June 3.
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone...-- Whether The Platters or the Elvis version....
[ Click HERE to email this story to your friends.]
-- Dan Damon
View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.
Posts
6 comments:
The town is paying through the nose to have Remington Vernik do all the work here. They are suppose to find a way to fix the Greenbrook for big $$'s as though the Army Corps hasn't been doing nothing for the last 20 years! Wait and see all Remington will say is the brook still floods, maybe clean it sometime and mail the check to South Jersey.
Do you think it's just a coincidence that Jerry Green sold property on St. George Avenue in Linden to the UCIA for over $700,000, which I believe may be in connection with the Morningstar project. I am really getting suspicious with all these projects going through the UCIA, which agency, IMO, is incompetent and has no business or creditials to be in the redevelopment business. I have even less faith that the State Attorney General's office will do a thorough investigation. I enjoy your informative website, BTW.
NFS
I am asking that people do the same and vote for Annie and Adrian. For those people who are in Gibson's Ward, ask yourself what he has done for you? Are you working for a company who has relocated to Plainfield because of great economic growth?
Is your child's education worth a hoot if you send them to the public school?
Do you want someone representing you who thinks that doing his best is finding a prayer acceptable for all, and going to a rally to save Muhlenberg?
Just remember, a vote for Gibson and Davis is a vote for Jerry Green. PLEASE consider Annie and Adrian.
Dan:
Bravo on your perceptive analysis of the "corruption tax" that burdens Plainfielders. I would add only one thing: a reminder about Charlote deFilippo's other role. The same Charlotte deFilippo who heads the Union County Improvement Authority (to which the Green-controlled City Council turned over responsibility for development) gave us our current mayor. By denying the regular Democratic Party's line in the last mayoral primary to incumbent Democrat Mayor McWilliams, giving it instead to Green protege Sharon Robinson-Briggs, deFilippo gave a massive boost to Green's power over Plainfield's purse strings. Can we be surprised that our City Council turned over development to her Union County Improvement Authority?
You can see Joe Roberts' official vehicle in the parking lot of the Remington-Vernick Haddonfield office far more often than you can see it at his district office in the Brooklawn Shopping Center.
Christie should have no trouble finding them in bed together.
I'm trying to find out more about a Sharon Robinson that sang as a member of the Platters in 1969-1970 and sang lead on a song called "Uncle Sam ain't no Woman (but he'll sure steal your man)". I ended up here because of the Mayor's name and your tie-in with a Platters lyric. Oh boy....
Post a Comment