Mudrick shills for solar

Fresh from hosting a big fundraising event for Freeholder candidates David Gray and Kathleen Gorman,  ex-Freeholder Dennis "it's sexual discrimination not sexual harassment" Mudrick has been making the rounds to public meetings trying to hard sell the solar scam all over again.  Hey, has he been down to see the FBI yet? How about the State Attorney General?  We've asked, but he hasn't told us anything.  Maybe he should try the hard sell with them?  On the record.

Mudrick lost his place on the Freeholder Board last year, not only because he voted for the solar bailout and spent the county's rainy day fund, but because he tried to bully the board's only woman member into voting for it too.  Some guy!

Mudrick would like us to forget the sad, sordid story of the solar scam that left Sussex County taxpayers on the hook for upwards of $40 million.  But we won't forget .  We read about it week after week... in the Herald, the Star-Ledger, the Record, the Sparta Independent, and the New York Times.  We don't forget!

Gray-Gorman website praises solar scam

Yesterday we lauded the first mailer sent out by the Freeholder campaign of David Gray and Kathleen Gorman.  We sincerely thought that their first piece of mailed campaign literature was well done.

Within an hour of our post praising their mailer, the Gray-Gorman camp sent out an email blast in which they lied by claiming to be Watchdog.  And for perhaps the tenth time, they used a false Pennsylvania address in an attempt to place the blame for their attacks on the shoulders of Senator Steve Oroho, who employs a consultant from the same town and state.

David Gray is a lawyer.  Gray is an officer of the Court and a candidate for public office.  We asked if this kind of false misrepresentation was really allowed by the New Jersey Bar Association and it was suggested to us that we file an ethics complaint.  Actually, we feel kind of sorry for David Gray.  Why does he need to lie and claim to be someone else? 

The Gray-Gorman email attacks Gail Phoebus and George Graham for refusing to support the bailout of the solar scam last year.  You remember that scam, don't you?  In February of last year, the Sparta Independent reported on the solar scam and asked these questions:

How did a solar power company that had only been in business for two years get loan guarantees of nearly $90 million from Sussex, Morris and Somerset counties?

And why would Sussex County, with a budget of about $100 million, put at risk $27.7 million through bond guarantees for a private company?

Sussex County Administrator John Eskilson says Sussex County is potentially facing $26 million in losses after SunLight General Capital, a solarpower energy company, was unable to pay back most of the $27.7 million in bonds the county took out for them through debt issued by the Morris County Municipal Authority.

The solar bailout that Gail Phoebus and George Graham voted against took another $10 million -- all of the "rainy day" money the county had put aside from the sale of the county's nursing home plus $3 million more -- and threw it at the failed solar project.  The three Freeholders who voted for the bailout -- Richard Vohden, Phil Crabb, and Dennis Mudrick -- are big supporters of Gray-Gorman and held a big fundraising event to fund the Gray-Gorman effort.

Now you might be asking why are Gray-Gorman attacking Gail Phoebus, who was elected to the state Assembly and isn't even a Freeholder anymore.  Gail Phoebus isn't even on the ballot this year, so why would Gray-Gorman waste the effort? 

Well, it is very clear that the Gray-Gorman campaign is being directed by the solar lobby and the vendors and lawyers responsible for the scam in the first place.  They will never forgive Mrs. Phoebus for standing up to them.  In the words of one solar watcher:  "They want her dead." 

Remember the Solar Proposal Evaluation Team that wrote the 2011 document used to sell the solar deal to the Sussex County Freeholders?  The Gray-Gorman email praised the members of this corrupt or incompetent team and criticized those who held them accountable.

Birdsall Services Group was a big part of the Solar Proposal Evaluation Team and the Group pleaded guilty in 2013, was fined $1 million and its assets sold in bankruptcy proceedings.  Birdsall's top executive recently got a prison sentence of 4 years, while another executive pleaded guilty late last month.  The Asbury Park Press reported:

BIRDSALL GOES TO PRISON FOR CORRUPTION

Toms River - Howard Birdsall, the former head of one of New Jersey's oldest and most prestigious engineering firms, was sentenced to four years in prison Friday in the pay-to-play corruption case that brought about the demise of the company that bore his family's name.

...Birdsall and six other of the firm's executives, as well as the firm itself, were indicted in 2013 on charges that they masked corporate campaign contributions as individual political donations in order to skirt the state's pay-to-play laws and get contracts it otherwise would have been disqualified from.

The evaluation team was put together by then County Administrator John Eskilson.  In 2015, Freeholders Richard Vohden, Phil Crabb, and Dennis Mudrick supported the bailout of the failed solar scheme.  These same freeholders later rewarded Eskilson with a position as a Trustee with the Sussex County Community College. 

Why are Gray-Gorman plainly aligning themselves with the solar scammers who raped Sussex County taxpayers for upwards of $40 million?  It is all about killing the county's investigation to put together a lawsuit to get our money back.  If the scammers can keep the money and plea bargain their way into paying a fine to resolve the criminal investigations, then they will come out ahead.

That's how these things often work out.  The fine is just a cost of doing business.  United States Senator Elizabeth Warren complained bitterly when HSBC Bank was caught laundering nearly a billion dollars in drug cartel money and ended up paying a fine with no prosecution.  Here is the Senator at a hearing discussing this subject:

Solar scam's Birdsall sentenced to 4 years

The 2011 document used to sell the solar deal to the Sussex County Freeholders was called the Solar Proposal Evaluation Report. It was the work of a committee that was formed to sell the solar scheme -- the Sussex County Evaluation Team.  Here are the members of the team:

- John Eskilson Sussex County Administrator

- Dennis McConnell, Sussex County Attorney

- Bernard Re, Sussex County Treasurer

- Steve Pearlman, a lawyer with Inglesino, Pearlman, Wyciskala & Taylor

- Deb Verderame, a lawyer with Inglesino, Pearlman, Wyciskala & Taylor

- Gerry Genna, Birdsall Services Group

- Tom Brys, Birdsall Services Group

- Douglas Bacher, NW Financial Group

- Heather Litzebauer, NW Financial Group

- Steven Gabel, Gabel Associates

- Richard Preiss, Gabel Associates

- Cadence Bowden, Gabel Associates

The evaluation team was put together by John Eskilson.  Two Birdsall cronies were on the team.  Freeholder Richard Vohden, Phil Crabb, and Dennis Mudrick supported the bailout of the failed solar scheme.  These same freeholders later rewarded Eskilson with a position as a trustee with the Sussex County Community College. 

The Asbury Park Press reported today:

BIRDSALL GOES TO PRISON FOR CORRUPTION

Toms River - Howard Birdsall, the former head of one of New Jersey's oldest and most prestigious engineering firms, was sentenced to four years in prison Friday in the pay-to-play corruption case that brought about the demise of the company that bore his family's name.

...Birdsall and six other of the firm's executives, as well as the firm itself, were indicted in 2013 on charges that they masked corporate campaign contributions as individual political donations in order to skirt the state's pay-to-play laws and get contracts it otherwise would have been disqualified from.

...Eatontown-based Birdsall Services Group pleaded guilty in the case in 2013, was fined $1 million and its assets sold in bankruptcy proceedings.

In other news from today...

Be careful with filling out those ethics disclosures. 

Lawrence Durr – longtime committeeman, mayor and planning board member in Chesterfield Township – pleaded guilty to a criminal charge that he filed fraudulent ethics disclosure forms that failed to disclose his financial relationship to a developer.  A state investigation revealed that Durr used his official positions to advance the developer’s plan to build a major residential and commercial project at a site in the township.

PolitickerNJ wrote:  "Never go anywhere in New Jersey and assess that the place might be different from any other familiar underbelly. . . Underneath the slick veneer of social respectability they actually occupy just one more den of inequity, or if you prefer the words of Obi Wan Kenobi, another 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'."

And the beat goes on...

Is the Sussex GOP "Dysfunctional"?

Gary Larson has been a successful local politician.  He is the Mayor of Frankford Township and has been elected and re-elected to that town's Committee.  At that level -- the small community -- it is tough to avoid hearing from your neighbor, to avoid touching the voters. 

Mayor Larson has also run for county Freeholder twice, in 2013 and again in 2015, and has lost both times.  After each loss, Larson has blamed the Republican Party for his loss.  In his most recent loss, he labeled the party as "dysfunctional".  One can only suppose that if he had won the election, Larson would have said the party was in good working order, functioning as it should.

But Larson does have a point because, by virtue of his running with incumbent Freeholder Dennis Mudrick, he could be described as a candidate of the county's "establishment".  So why didn't he win? 

The weekend before the June 2nd primary election, Larson and Mudrick put out a mailer that listed their support from local and county elected officials. Including Mudrick, three of the five county Freeholders supported Larson.  Their ticket ran a technically better campaign, with unified advertising and more voter contact.  They got their message out, so what went wrong?

Well, what went wrong was the same thing that went so disastrously wrong with the campaign of Marie Bilik.  The message and where it came from.

Instead of looking to the voters for guidance about what their message should be, in Sussex County many would be elected officials look to a small group of political insiders.  They have conversations, conduct their own version of "market research" and then fashion their message based on how they believe these insiders will react to it.  Unfortunately, these insiders represent only a fraction of the primary electorate who actually turnout to vote.  And many have altogether different reasons for voting.

There are levels of "insider" in Sussex County.  At the inner most core exist those who owe their living to government -- county, local, state, and federal (in that order) -- especially those whose living is based on a more fluid relationship with government.  Most county employees have a static relationship with government (35 hours time for X in compensation, week in, week out) and are not political insiders.  However, if you are looking to score a contract from government, it is probably safe to say that you are at least an aspiring insider.  If you are not one of the chattering class, you will soon be.

It is this relationship -- the wanting of something from government -- that makes the Sussex County "insider" so different from the average Republican primary voter in Sussex County.  The insider is looking for something from government:  Money or some consideration that he or she can turn into money.  The average Republican voter doesn't want shat from government.  They simply want to be left alone.  They want government to spend less, so it doesn't have to tax them at the highest rate in America.

So there's the difference.  The insider wants government to spend taxpayers' money on their product or service.  The average Republican primary voter wants government to spend less and just go away.  It's a difference of perspective and it is why candidates like Gary Larson see "dysfunction" -- because the wants of the insiders he's listening to are different from those of the Republican voters he is trying to convince to vote for him.

And often -- too often -- the insider's game turns into little more than crony capitalism, with products and services considered based on the pedigree of the "representative" (aka "advocate", "lobbyist", "recipient of corporate welfare") as opposed to the needs of the taxpayer.  Who said we needed solar panels on the roof tops of every public building anyway?  Which came first, some insider's need for a score or the taxpayers' need for the product?

So Gary Larson is on to something.  There is something dysfunctional about Sussex County politics.  Too many prospective elected officials dispense with polling the people they want to represent and instead look to the direction of a handful of chattering insiders.  These perspectives couldn't be more different, and so they lose, wonder why, and then call it "dysfunctional".

Wipeout

(Courtesy of the New Jersey Herald)