A response to post number 2198 on nj.com/forums/union
2198.1. strong
statement
by beaney, 9/6/03 21:01 ET
Re: The Issues by joerenna, 9/6/03
"The $340
million County budget has been used to leverage both financial
and political support for the party. This secures the chances
that the
Freeholder Board will retain their absolute power."May I
ask what you have to
back it up?
End Play-to-Play
My response to
post number 2198.1 on nj.com/forums/union
by Joe Renna
Hi beaney,
Thanks for responding.
The statement I made seems strong and accusatory but if there is no quid pro quo then there is nothing illegal about "Pay-to Play". I am raising this issue as an example of a policy that the Freeholders can easily change and result in saving the County millions of dollars and receive better value for our money.
A list of campaign contributors and how much they donated can be found on the Election Law Enforcement Commission website. It isn't easy to use, It is very time consuming and you must know exactly what your looking for.
Contributions are public record as well as the list of companies that have contracted to do work with the County. Not only can these businesses be found on the contributors' lists but people employed by these businesses can be as well. Unless you know the names of the principals and employees of companies it is impossible to check this out. Some searches reveal that campaign contributions were made from the same address to different committees under different names and combinations of names.
Companies don't have to contribute directly to the local government they are working with. They may donate to a committee elsewhere in the state and that committee can transfer the funds to another. Connecting the two lists is very difficult.
Like I mentioned before there is nothing illegal about giving contracts to companies that donate to your campaign fund, but, in the interest of the county, why do it?. Why isn't it dealt with openly? I think it is a bad practice, especially when no bid contracts are involved. There is no way to know if the county is receiving the best service for the lowest price. Even some contracts that are supposed to go through the bid process somehow are able to skirt around it. It is almost impossible to find the money trail for some work done for the County.
My background is in printing. I first started looking into this issue when I owned my own business and was doing work for the County. Printing had to go through a bid process and I could never figure out who was getting the printing work and at what cost. Even today, while doing research for my campaign, I noticed that the County gave printing jobs to Royal Printing in Jersey City. There are about 100 printers in the County of Union. It is questionable why the County went to Jersey City for a simple print job. Why not keep the business in our own County? Did the job go through the bid process? Was this the lowest price we could have gotten? These are simple question that should be asked of any contract.
It didn't surprise me that Royal Printing turned up as a Democratic campaign contributor. Even if I remove the political aspect of the situation, this is still bad management. And this is small potatoes. When I look into contracts that approach the million dollar mark, the matter becomes very serious.
On March 13, 2003, Worrall newspapers reported "at least a third of the contributions to the Union County Democratic Committee last year came from firms, or people connected to firms, that do business with Union County government."
The article raised an interesting question concerning what the connection a woman in Red Bank, who contributed $25,000 to Union County Democrats, would have with our County. The paper suggested that the contribution was passed through to another race in the state.
In 1999, I conceived and produced a newsletter for the Union County Alliance (UCA) called Directions. The County of Union would be supplying the information and the UCA would be paying for the job, so no bid was needed. The UCA operated on money given to them by the County and used some of it to produce this newsletter. I gave a quote to the UCA to print and mail the newsletter but I did not get the job. It went to a printing broker doing business as SVO Printing in Rockaway, NJ. SVO printed the first two issues. I would have liked to have done the print job and thought I was very competitive in my quote, but I was happy with at least doing the production.
Last year I came across a receipt that showed that UCA paid $40,000 more for the printing than I quoted. The owner of SVO happened to be Rich Stender, husband of Linda Stender who was a Union County Freeholder and who also sat on the Board of Directors of the UCA. Why Pay $40,000 more than what the job could have been done for by a business located in Union County?
It would take a legal expert to know what the legal and ethical implications of what went on with this job but as a citizen it raised allot of questions in me. For instance would this be considered taxpayer's money or is it once removed because UCA payed for the job? Was there a conflict of interest because Linda Stender was a sitting Freeholder and on the UCA board? Was any of the money used in Linda Stender's campaign when she ran for the assembly seat she won?
I know about this situation because I was personally involved. I know second hand of many similar stories and can only imagine the others. I think it is the job of our elected officials and the administration that the appoint to watch that this kind of stuff does not go on and not be a part of it. The actions of the County are very well hidden. It seems that the only people with true access to the public records are the government officials. As a Freeholder I can, at the very least, make people more informed and offer an alternative to, what I think, are bad management practices.