Response to New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/nyregion/02profile.html
Lesniak stays in the dark while sharing the light.
The Chris Hedges' article "The Governor's Confidant Shares the light", which appeared in the September 2 2004 issue of The New York Time, says that Ray Lesniak hardly looks the part of a self help guru, yet that is what he is. The help he has given himself is not spiritual but financial. His law firm, Weiner Lesniak, has made millions more from government contracts than the hundreds of thousands you alluded to. The most pertinent point that is made is that he is at the top of the biggest, most corrupt, state political machine in the nation. One does not get there by transcendental meditation.
Power in New Jersey derives from a political device called "pay-to-play". It is perfectly legal for campaign contributors to secure no-bid government contracts, as long as the quid-pro-quo element is not recorded. To think that this is an innocent business practice is nieve. This is a crime, and its victims are the taxpaying public who must foot the exorbitant cost of questionable services that go unaccountable.
I live in Union County, NJ, which contains the district that the senator represents. You would be hard pressed to find another place where the abuse of power is more egregious. Lesniak holds the strings to the Union County Democratic machine. The nine members of the Freeholder board have been all Democrats going on ten years. They are selected by the machine and usually are appointed through a mid term switch. Rank and file Democrats are not invited. If one of the anointed should step out of line or show any independent thought they swiftly fall from grace. There is a cavern between the team players and the rest of the party.
The nine freeholders consistently vote 9-0 on all resolutions, without discussion or public consideration. Just to make sure things are being done to Lesniak's approval the freeholder board appointed his nephew, George Devanney, to the position of county manager. This is a guy who has no advanced degree or management experience. He is now in charge of 3,000 employees and a $366 million budget. His qualifications came from concurrently being both the county's deputy county manager and the economic development director for two years. Positions that did not exist before he held them. Besides his salary and perks, the county budget is also absorbing an executive position for his wife, Angie Bowen. Together they pull in over $250,000.
One could argue that patronage employees are another form of pay-to-play. The county employee roster has swelled with political operatives and relatives, including, as the Times' article described it, one from a succession of the attractive women Lesniak has squired. When incompetent and inexperienced employees are appointed to the the highest positions of responsibility it is a travesty of the merit system and an abuse of the subordinates.
Over the three years that Devanney has been county manager, the county portion of our property taxes have risen almost 40%. Our county debt has climbed to over $360 million. This has been happening while essential services are being reduced. The NY Times article mentions Lesniak's "political influence" and "power broking" in a playful light but there has been grave consequences to his actions. The pain is felt throughout Union County by those who rely on government services and taxpayers who are not receiving what they are paying for.
I would recommend looking into Lesniak's "personal metamorphosis". There is more to it than being jilted by a woman he was dating. His finding his spirituality conveniently happened when the FBI started investigating a company named Gunite, long after he already pocked his millions as an attorney. As other Investigations are surfacing our senator is positioning himself further from from those less enlightened, those being mentioned in articles about corruption probes: Kushner, Phillips, Taffet, Levinsohn, Manzo, Cart, Lynch, Westlake, Feldman, and many others who contributed generously when Lesniak headed the fund raising for the state democratic committee.
Lesniak must have built his relationship with God on the golf course or in the tenants association of his Tribeca condo in New York because he hasn't been seen in Elizabeth. It is from this relationship with this higher power that Lesniak finds the knowledge to guide and advise McGreevey. Lesniak referred to the rumors about his friends sexuality but failed to mention the same rumors about his own. McGreevey is a "Gay American". Is this his reason for resigning? Only he and his friend Ray know for sure. In the mean time, Lesniak has been the subject of more articles, all laudatory, mind you, in the past month than he has been in his 25 years of elected office. Seems to me he is either hiding something or building a positive character profile for a defense case.
Joe Renna
Cranford, NJ