Byram residents deserve real answers

True story:  The people who planned the Final Solution -- the mass murder in cold blood of 6 million human beings -- were not ghouls or trolls or monsters. They were well-educated lawyers and senior bureaucrats who came up with the plan to hunt down, enslave, murder, and then incinerate millions of men, women, and children who were no different than any of us.  Their justifications for doing so employed an exquisite legalese.  They used the law as a cover for their actions and a legalese to obscure the very meaning of words.  For instance, to "evacuate" someone was to murder him or her.

The clip above was taken from the film "Conspiracy" which should be required viewing for every high school in America.  The film closely follows the characters and details from the Wannsee Conference at which the so-called Final Solution was drawn up.

All this came to mind when we read in the New Jersey Herald this exchange between Byram Township Attorney Tom Collins and citizen-activist Harvey Roseff, a taxpaying resident of Byram.  Kudos to reporter Joe Carlson:

Last week, the Byram division of PBA Local 138 — the union that represents Byram Police officers — sent a postcard to Byram residents saying the union believed Sabatini would not approve a move to the State Health Benefits insurance package because he would lose compensation that he received because he didn’t get his health insurance through the township, thus creating a conflict of interest.

Township Attorney Tom Collins, of the Morristown law firm Vogel, Chait, Collins and Schneider, said in a statement that there was no conflict of interest in the matter.

“As township attorney, I am confirming that Mr. Sabatini, the Byram manager, has no conflict of interest, in any way, in connection with the police contract arbitration and negotiations,” the statement read by Oscovitch said. “Mr. Sabatini, as township manager, has successfully, effectively, reasonably and ethically carried out the policies of the mayor and council and Township of Byram in all respects relating to the arbitration and negotiations. I have advised you that Mr. Sabatini may and should continue to work on these matters on behalf of Byram Township.”

Byram resident Harvey Roseff, questioned how there couldn’t be any conflict.

“There are two different choices to be made,” Roseff said. “One of those choices affects Mr. Sabatini’s compensation.”

Collins responded that the negotiations are part of his role.

“The role is not in conflict. He is an employee and a manager,” Collins said. “He serves at the will of the Township Council. It is standard operating procedure.”

Roseff also said that he believed the township’s health benefits consultant, Frank Covelli, also has a conflict of interest.

“Mr. Covelli acted as the salesman, sold the health plan and got a commission on that,” Roseff said. “He (is) also the administrator of same plan and gets compensated for that. Both of those go away if the township goes to the State Health Benefits plan.”

Collins, who said he teaches law classes regarding ethics and conflicts of interest, said he didn’t see that as a conflict of interest either.

“I am satisfied they are not in any position for a conflict of interest,” Collins said.

Where is the Township Attorney's argument?  Instead of making a logical argument, he points to his credentials and says "it is ethical because I say it is ethical."  Now who gave you the power to play god?

How many times have we seen cocksure grab-ass attorneys tell us to "take it from me" and use their "credentials" as a means of blowing so much smoke up the taxpayers' collective arse.  Only later do we find out who they really are. 

Lawyers have to really screw up to get disciplinary action against them, but that hasn't stopped the list of those disciplined in New Jersey to grow to 574 pages (that's 6 to 8 lawyers a page).  Most of these lawyers get to practice again even after being disciplined.  Heck, even getting convicted for child porn doesn't get you disbarred.  Neither does selling drugs or serving time in prison for corruption.

So don't be fooled by someone who reads you his credentials instead of answering your questions.  Just as a doctor goes to medical school to learn how to defeat diseases, it is just as possible that a lawyer approaches ethics in the same way.  There are plenty of examples.

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...

Look who is talking about ethics

There's balls and then there's balls and it takes serious balls for a serial ethics offender to lecture other people about ethics.  But that is just what happened last week.

Freeholder Director Phil "cement sack" Crabb waddled out to the attack last week, desperately looking for a handle to grab hold of.  He even tried the "conspiracy" line and accused someone of writing the statements for the two freeholders, an Assemblyman, a Senator, and a posse of mayors and local elected officials who disagreed with him.

This is coming from Phil Crabb, someone who hasn't exactly been a font of original thinking since he was jumped over a dozen people to be elevated to the Freeholder Board.  Has Crabb ever stood up to County Administrator John Eskilson, even once? 

A case in point was when Crabb spoke out of turn to the Herald and said that he supported the taxpayers' right to know the details of what they were paying for.  Then Crabb got the word from John Eskilson, that he hadn't read the script right, and had to exercise a painful public about face.  That will teach Phil to call John and get the script before opening his mouth.

Crabb so cravenly follows Eskilson that if John stopped short, Phil would find his head lodged somewhere unpleasant.  Eskilson doesn't even actually have to write Crabb's stuff for him, because Phil just waits until John speaks, writes it down, and then reads it back word for word.

When these tepid attacks failed, the "boss" of our Freeholder Board brought up "transparency" as a defense.  Freeholder Crabb wants us to believe that he is more "transparent" because he opposes letting the people know anything about a contract they are on the hook for until after it has been voted on and it is too late.  In Crabb's mind, he opposes transparency because he supports transparency.

Crabb twisted, kicked, and screamed trying to prevent the people from knowing how they were done by the "professionals" who continued to rake in big fees even when all work had stopped on the solar project.  Citizen activist Harvey Roseff asked, "When did Sussex County change our governing structure from 'of, by and for the people (not professionals)'"?

The state's campaign finance laws are the primary means of transparency by which citizens can see who our elected officials are taking money from.  They are our basic barometer of ethics. 

That doesn't matter to Phil Crabb who openly scoffs at the law.  Freeholder Phil is Sussex County's poster boy when it comes to ignoring ethics rules.  He operated his campaign account for four years without filing timely reports in accordance with state campaign finance laws. 

Then in 2011, his GOP running mates put their foot down and wouldn't let him on the ballot with them until he straightened his act out and both filed his past due reports and started filing future reports on time.  Crabb got better, but still missed a lot of deadlines.  It looked like he had cleaned up his act for his 2014 re-election but the moment the election was behind him he missed his first filing deadline. 

Crabb has some balls talking ethics.

And George Carlin was probably thinking about Crabb's kind of "professional" businessmen when he wrote this skit:

Freeholder Crabb: Late again with ethics filing

The state's campaign finance laws are the primary means of transparency by which citizens can see who our elected officials are taking money from.  That doesn't matter to some elected officials in Sussex County who openly scoff at the law.  Freeholder Phil Crabb is Sussex County's poster boy when it comes to ignoring ethics rules.  He operated his campaign account for four years without filing timely reports in accordance with state campaign finance laws. 

Then in 2011, his GOP running mates put their foot down and wouldn't let him on the ballot with them until he straightened his act out and both filed his past due reports and started filing future reports on time.  Crabb got better, but still missed a lot of deadlines.  It looked like he had cleaned up his act for his re-election but now with the election behind him he missed his first filing deadline after the November election. 

In some counties, a wanton screw-up like Crabb would have been quietly asked to step aside.  Examples abound in other parts of the state.  Not in Sussex County.  Wantonly, purposefully, breaking the ethics rules doesn't matter.  Crabb's reward for breaking the law year in and year out was a fundraiser held in his honor at the wine cellar of the powerful Mulvihill corporate clan.

Speaking of fundraisers at the wine cellar, it looks like the secret is out.  A few weeks ago, the New Jersey Herald ran a story about the latest county incumbents to be feted at the wine cellar.  From the article, it looks like the vendors who made up the dormant Skylands Victory PAC now influence county officials by putting on fundraising events for them.  The way they do it is worth a look see, as the donations collected appear to fall under the reporting threshold.  Whether purposeful or not, the effect is the same, with voters left in the dark about who is underwriting the political campaigns of their elected county officials.  Too bad, because the voters should get to see who their elected officials are indebted to. 

Who said, "There are no Democrats or Republicans, only haves and have nots"?  While two dozen of the county's political and corporate elite were drinking fine wine and eating lobster and steak, the U.S. Census figures showed that New Jersey was one of just three states where both the number of people living in poverty and the poverty rate increased.  Who is advising these people? 

Have some common sense.  Economic hard times demand a show of humility.  Instead of rubbing voters faces in it by having a meal with a price tag most of them can't afford, why not hold a hot dog supper at a price everyone could afford?  In a democracy middle-class voters and fat cats all get just one vote each.  More is better.

Was that wrong?

" After speaking with each of the three Trustees who had relationships with CP, it became apparent that none of them recognized or appreciated what the College's  Ethics Code or New Jersey law required of them when votes relating to CP came before the College's Board. Rather than making full disclosure to all members of the Board of their relationships with CP, the three Trustees did not disclose their various relationships with CP   and merely abstained or, in some instances, voted on these matters."

 It is beginning to sound like a Seinfeld episode.