Freeholder candidate in serious trouble?

Another email was circulated yesterday claiming to be from Watchdog.  Only we didn't authorize it or send it.  The physical address that appeared on the email was false.  It included the town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, in an apparent effort to implicate Senator Oroho's consultant.

In past emails, the address of an attorney from Somerset County, Frank Whittlesey, was listed as the physical address.  Whittlesey works for the Somerset County Freeholder Board and is affiliated with that county's improvement authority -- the same agency connected with the solar deal that has cost Sussex County taxpayer's millions. 

Watchdog has been the victim of several of these emails.  Freeholder George Graham likewise had his identity stolen.  These emails always carry the same message of hate for Freeholder Graham.  He is their target.

Yesterday's email contained a copied column from another blog -- CNJ Politics -- that was pasted into the body of the email.  Watchdog contacted one of the owners of the CNJ Politics website, which no longer operates.  Watchdog explained what was happening and the owner told us that CNJ Politics used advanced software for tracking and identifying its readers.

The owner checked for us and found that CNJ Politics had only been accessed twice since December 31, 2015.  Just two people on planet earth had gone to that website and guess what they had accessed?  Yep, they accessed the exact same column that was copied and pasted into yesterday's email.

Every computer has its own fingerprint.  It's called the IP address.  Using the IP addresses of the two people who had accessed the CNJ Politics website, the owner found that one IP address was connected with the Alcatel-Lucent Corporation and that the other was connected to a location in Sparta, New Jersey.

Alcatel-Lucent was recently in the news, having merged with Nokia in January of this year.

The owner could tell us that the column that was lifted from his website and pasted onto yesterday's email was accessed by the Sparta IP address at 11:48 AM, March 23, 2016, and by the Alcatel-Lucent IP address at 12:04 PM, March 24, 2016.

Below are screen shots of some of the other identifiers CNJ Politics turned over to us.  First, let's look at the Alcatel-Lucent IP address:

Note that the following appears in connection with the Alcatel-Lucent IP address:

URL: file://C:\Users\kgorman\, avg.

Curiously enough, there is a Kathleen Gorman running against George Graham in the Freeholder race.  According to Rob Jennings of the New Jersey Herald (April 3, 2016), "Gorman works as a buyer and planner for Nokia, located in Murray Hill."

Now here is the information associated with the Sparta IP address:

Note that the following appears in connection with the Sparta IP address:

 URL: file://C:\Users\fvohd_000\

We would rather not comment on who this might be.  Sigh.

This could well be a serious matter, especially if Freeholder George Graham chooses to make it so.  Remember that one of these emails actually used Graham's identity so that it appeared as if it had been sent from him.  Two recent cases, one involving a campaign in Passaic County, the other a campaign in Monmouth County, illustrate the pitfalls of hijacking a candidate's identity.

Man pleads guilty to deceptive phone calls (The Record, February 21, 2012)

Prosecutors: 4 A.M. Robocalls In NJ Senate Race Were Placed By Rival Campaign (CBS, New York, August 12, 2014)

Happily, there is no evidence that candidate for Freeholder Dave Gray, of Byram, has any connection to this matter.

Franklin mom calls out Freeholder Mudrick

In a letter to Freeholders, Franklin resident Dawn Fantasia -- a member of Franklin's Economic Development Committee and the mother of three -- questioned Freeholder Dennis Mudrick's actions outside public meetings.

Mudrick is a lame duck Freeholder, having been defeated for re-election in the June Republican primary.  His term expires in ten days.  Fantasia is an educator and a former Republican Committeewoman who has been active with local charities and civic efforts.

The letter is re-printed below: 

December 9, 2015 

Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders

County Administrative Center
One Spring Street, 1st Floor
Newton, NJ 07860 

To the Members of the Freeholder Board: 

At the last meeting of the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Freeholder Richard Vohden called for an investigation of Freeholder George Graham because Vohden believed that Graham had acted without the permission of the Freeholder Board.  It is my understanding that something similar has happened before:  Freeholder Dennis Mudrick conducted private interviews with the three candidates for the position of Sussex County Counsel before they appeared in open session before the full board.  

I would like to know how Freeholder Mudrick become aware that these three persons were the candidates?

It is also my understanding that Freeholder Mudrick offered a job and a salary to one of the unsuccessful candidates that he interviewed for the position of county counsel.  As far as I am aware, the position he discussed with this candidate does not exist.  The job Mudrick offered was "counsel to the Sheriff's Department" and the salary quoted was "$2,000 per week". 

Freeholder Mudrick subsequently announced to the Freeholder Board at the June 16, 2015 special meeting that he had met with the three candidates prior to the meeting of the full board.  Unfortunately, Freeholder Mudrick neglected to tell the other members of the Board and the taxpaying public how he came to know who the candidates were.

Freeholder Mudrick has also failed to disclose who authorized him to offer another position, with a salary figure, to one of the unsuccessful candidates. 

I request that the Freeholder Board ask Freeholder Mudrick to address these questions.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Dawn Fantasia

Franklin

Solar bailout discussed in secret

If you want to know why people are so disgusted with government that they no longer vote, look no further than what happened last Friday in Sussex County. 

At the urging of Morris County GOP insiders, some of the freeholders there prevailed upon Sussex County Freeholder Richard Vohden, Freeholder Director Phil Crabb, and Sussex County Administrator Stephen Gruchacz to hold a special, behind-closed-doors, secret session with incoming Sussex County Freeholders Jon Rose and Carl Lazzaro.  The topic: The solar scam and resulting bailout that has cost Sussex County taxpayers millions. 

Invited:  Freeholder and choreographer-in-chief Vohden, County Administrator Gruchacz, Morris County officials, and solar corporate executives.  

Not invited:  The taxpaying public.  That's right, it is your job to pay the bill.  But don't ever think that you get to question the bill.

Who got to present their spin on the solar scam?  The people who hatched it, of course.  This was an opportunity created for the attorney representing the Morris County Improvement Authority and corporate representatives from Sunlight (the company responsible for the mess) and Vanguard (the politically-connected vendors who got the lucrative contract to clean it up) to influence the incoming Freeholders behind-closed-doors and in a back-room fashion.

What was their purpose?  They strongly hinted that this secret meeting should take the place of any full investigation by the Sussex County Freeholders.  Rose and Lazzaro won on a platform promising the people of Sussex County a full investigation.

Before coming to work in Sussex County (he doesn't reside here) County Administrator Gruchacz was a Democrat Party official who worked for the corrupt machine of Essex County boss Jim Treffinger.  The federal investigation into Treffinger revealed that county government was rife with corruption -- including pay-to-play vendors deals, nepotism in hiring, and mistresses on the county payroll.  Treffinger pleaded guilty to federal charges of obstruction of justice and mail fraud in 2003.  He was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay a fine.

In less than a month, Sussex County will have new leadership.  A new Freeholder Board majority made up of Freeholders George Graham, Jon Rose, and Carl Lazzaro will out vote the remaining establishment insiders Richard Vohden and Phil Crabb.  One of their first orders of business should be a re-do of Friday's meeting, at which all the same characters would be asked in to take questions from the public.  Yes, give the taxpayers a chance to ask questions. 

The Sussex Democrats are idiots

Here is why the Sussex Democrats will never elect another Freeholder in Sussex County and so will never matter.  At the agitation of Sussex County Freeholders Richard Vohden and Phil Crabb, the County formally asked for an ethics investigation against fellow Freeholder George Graham, because Graham had allegedly let the taxpaying public know about details of Freeholder Board business that Vohden and Crabb wanted kept from the public.

That's right, Freeholder Graham believes the public has the right to know what is going on in the public body that collects and spends its property tax dollars.  Vohden and Crabb like to keep the public in the dark (like they did when they negotiated the solar deal and then passed a bailout that will cost taxpayers millions).  The favorite means used by Vohden and Crabb to blind the public to their activities is called "executive session,"  they over-use something that should be used sparingly and only for the most legally sensitive matters. 

In theory, "executive session" should only be used by a public body to discuss sensitive personnel and legal matters.  But under the directorships (more like dictatorships) of Vohden and then Crabb, executive session has been used to shut the public out of discussions they should know about.  They end up learning about it too late, when the bill comes, and often after what was covered up turns out to be a scam.

Now if you think that the Democrats are rallying to make hay out of this and, more importantly, to make themselves relevant around the kitchen tables of Sussex County, then you would be wrong.  Instead of focusing on a bread and butter issue like transparency, the Sussex County Democrats have jumped into foreign policy and joined with a group that is taking Russian President Putin's side against the United States.

In correspondence advertising the Sussex Democrats' December 5th rally in Newton, a neo-Marxist Group called New Jersey Peace Action claimed that making the Obama Justice Department and the FBI responsible for ensuring that no terrorists slip through using the cover of Syrian refugees (as happened in the Paris attacks that murdered 130 innocent people, mainly young people attending a rock concert) would "effectively block Syrian refugees from entering the United States."  Last time we checked, the administration of President Barack Obama wasn't anti-refugee, so claiming that an Obama appointee would be so tough on refugee applications for residency is pretty darned remarkable and says a lot about just who this "Peace Action" group thinks is coming into the United States.

In the same correspondence, the Marxists who the Sussex County Democrats have chosen to align themselves with make this boldfaced lie:  "As we know, the majority of Syrian refugees are widowed women and children."

Here are the facts, directly from the federal agency responsible for refugee resettlement:  "Since the Paris terror attacks on November 13, the State Department has admitted 132 Syrian refugees into the United States, and all 132 are Sunni Muslims.  No Christian, Druze, Shi’ite, Alawite, or member of any other religious minority in Syria has been admitted over that period, according to data from the State Department Refugee Processing Center.  The majority of the 132 Syrian refugees permitted to resettle in the U.S. since November 13 (72) are male, the minority female (60).   Of the 132 total, 39 (29.5 percent) have been men between the ages of 14 and 50."

And true to its membership in the "Blame America First" league, the "Peace Action" nuts make this claim in their correspondence:  "Given the amount of damage the United States has done in the region, this is partially our responsibility." 

So America is responsible for the refugee crisis in Syria because President Obama opposes the barbaric regime in power there?   Wow, that sounds a lot like the position taken by the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad, Dictator of Syria and Commander-in-Chief of its murderous and rapacious armed forces.   It is also the position taken by that regime's primary supporter -- President Vladimir Putin of Russia. 

In aligning itself with New Jersey Peace Action, the Sussex County Democrats have aligned themselves with career dirt-bags who oppose the patriotic American men and women of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.  During a time when terrorists target military recruiting offices and murder the brave young people who serve there, these idiots are out protesting those same recruiting offices.  Here they are protesting an American military recruitment office in Elizabeth, New Jersey: 

The spineless idiots of Peace Action reject the American eagle and take as their mascot the puffin -- a fat, frightened bird species who fear to come out of their holes lest the black backed gulls eat them.  No kidding, the gulls grab a puffin and shake it so furiously that they turn it inside out.  That is their vision for America:  Inside-out.  To ensure peace, they prescribe slavery. 

Shame on the Sussex County Democrats for ignoring kitchen table issues and for instead climbing into bed with these America-blamers.

Vohden, Mudrick appoint former Essex Democrat to top job

On Sunday, Herald reporter Rob Jennings wrote a very interesting column about Sussex County's new top dog -- County Administrator Stephen Gruchacz. 

At last week's meeting of the county's Freeholder Board, Gruchacz -- who had been the county's Human Services Administrator -- was appointed County Administrator on a 3-2 vote (Crabb, Vohden, Mudrick voted yes; Phoebus and Graham voted no).  Along with the promotion, Gruchacz picked up a 22% salary increase worth $30,000 a year and the opportunity to boost his taxpayer-funded pension with a three-year contract. 

Not bad for someone who has never lived in Sussex County.  Crabb, Vohden, and Mudrick waived the county's residency requirement to allow Gruchacz, a resident of Somerset County, to take Sussex County's top job. 

We don't know about Crabb, but what Vohden and Mudrick should have known as they made these decisions was that Stephen Gruchacz had once been a very active Democrat Party politician in Essex County.  In fact, Gruchacz was the Democrat Municipal Chairman in Maplewood -- part of the particularly repugnant party machine in Essex County/Newark.  

When Gruchacz was a Democrat candidate for local office, the campaign he ran was too rough even for Essex County.  The Republicans actually sued Gruchasz and his Democrat running mate for making "false and defamatory statements" against the Republicans.  Gruchasz and the Democrats dismissed the charges as "political grandstanding."  The accusations were over an alleged "no bid contract."  Are you experiencing deja vu? 

Hey, politics isn't bean bag and we're sure Gruchasz got as good as he gave.  In fact, he's risen in our estimation -- but did any one of these Republicans stop and think about it before waiving the rules, giving a raise, and promoting this one-time machine Democrat to the top job in the state's most Republican County? 

This is a vote that only a R.I.N.O. would make.  That's R.I.N.O. -- as in Republican In Name Only. 

As Democrat Chairman of Maplewood, Stephen Gruchasz also held an appointed county position with Essex County, as that county's Director of the Division of Community Health Services.  Jennings notes that he was Essex County's Director the Department of Health & Rehabilitation.  Gruchasz left Essex County for Somerset County in April 2002 -- about the same time he started working for Sussex County. 

In contrast with Sussex County and its unelected County Administrator, Essex County has an elected County Executive.  In April 2002, a two-year investigation culminated in the Essex County offices being raided by the FBI.  That October, indictments were announced against the County Executive and others.  The County Executive pleaded guilty to two of twenty counts filed against him -- admitting that he had solicited an illegal $15,000 campaign contribution in exchange for a county contract.   He was sentenced to 13 months in prison. 

Gruchasz' time at Essex County had its controversies -- particularly when he tried to mastermind the sale of that county's geriatric center.  As reported in the Star-Ledger (August 17, 1995) residents and labor union leaders demanded that Gruchacz be fired.  Deja vu, all over again?