Will "Dick" Eskilson get away with it?

Sussex County might have more trees than people, but that doesn't mean fresh air in the political sense.  When it comes to politics it resembles the filth and corruption you find in any old urban hell hole made that way by an entrenched machine.

Case in point:  The taxpayer-funded Sussex County Community College and its Board of Trustees.  The Board already has plenty of people with political connections on it.  There is a vacancy.   Maybe time for someone with a background in education (it being the Board of a C-O-L-L-E-G-E)?  

No way.  Because this isn't about the students or the taxpayers.  It is about who gets what contract, and the way to ensure that the "right" people get to trouser the taxpayer's money is to appoint the "right" people to the Board.  

So a "search committee" was hand-picked by county boss John Eskilson.  This was before he got into trouble over the solar bailout and then watched as voters threw out a sitting Freeholder who backed him on the bailout. 

So who'd the "search committee" pick?  Eskilson, of course, and a former mayor who was also defeated at the polls.  So the choice is between two political players who have been firmly rejected by the voters.

You'll remember that Boss Eskilson resigned, somewhat prematurely, from his position as County Administrator in the middle of last year.  Now the man Eskilson took from corrupt Essex County and groomed to be his successor will choose between the two.

You couldn't come up with a more corrupt, self-dealing process if you tried.  It is along the lines of what Dick Cheney did when he put together the "search committee" to find a Vice Presidential running mate for George W. Bush.  Cheney was in charge of the "vetting process" and the process picked him.  So now we have "Dick" Eskilson. 

Really?  Now they don't even try to hide their scumbag behavior?   At the next meeting of the Freeholder Board, Freeholder Director Phil Crabb might just as well stand up and give the audience a middle-finger salute.  "This is for all you taxpayers... Here in Sussex County we do what we please and you don't get to know squat."  To which Freeholder Vohden could add, "Just remember to pay your property taxes on time."

The press has been doing its job.  The New Jersey Herald's Rob Jennings caught them red handed in a column titled "Artful dodge by college's trustee search committee."http://www.njherald.com/article/20151220/ARTICLE/312209963

We blame the Sussex County Democrats who have failed and failed again -- for over a decade -- to provide any scrutiny or opposition to anything at the county level.  It's like they think county government is too unimportant for them and that kitchen table issues like property taxes and job creation are not worth their time.  Instead they want to ban meat and spend their time on international issues like the war in Syria.  They could be a valuable check and balance to the people of Sussex County and instead all they want to do is support the extermination of unborn children and adopt bears.  Come on, pull your heads out of your butts.

As a comedian once asked of the hapless Tory Party in Great Britain:  "Is it match-fixing?  Is someone bribing them to be terrible at politics?"

Vohden says legislators need his direction

There is general agreement around Sussex County and the region, that the current Freeholder Board -- led by the cabal of Phil Crabb, Rich Vohden, and Dennis Mudrick -- has been the worst for many years.  That's why voters wisely rejected the candidacy for re-election of Freeholder Mudrick, which should put Crabb and Vohden in the minority after next year's reorganization.

County government is marked by its arrogance and authoritarianism.  It is incompetent and lacks transparency, conducts business using nepotism and vendor cronyism, and is dominated by a corrupt few who have spent and borrowed the county into its current predicament. 

At the November 24, 2015, meeting of the Freeholder Board, Freeholder Richard Vohden was reporting on his attendance at the League of Municipalities festivities in Atlantic City.  He made these remarks:

"This year the most discussed issue was the urgency of funding the state Transportation Trust Fund.  I attended two seminars where the issue was discussed at length and another where the only topic was the fund.  The decision on how this issue is resolved is so important that I believe that we, the freeholders should have a conversation, I think we should discuss this and let our legislators know because the legislators are looking at this from different positions and I think maybe we could come to a decision on how we think this should be handled.  I think we should have that discussion. . . I think we should give our legislators some guidance."

Guidance?  From Richard "Solar Bailout" Vohden?  Vohden, who has done so much to screw up Sussex County, now wants to lend his expertise to screwing up the entire state.  Doesn't this leave that displeasing taste of arrogance? 

Sure, everybody is entitled to an opinion -- even a screw-up politician -- but the voters of Sussex, Warren, and Morris counties elected Senator Steve Oroho, Assemblyman Parker Space, and Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus to tackle state issues.  Vohden and the other Freeholders in Sussex County have a job to do in Sussex County.  If Freeholder Vohden needs something to do, he should figure out how Sussex taxpayers can get some of their money back from that solar scam he supported.

It didn't stop there.  Later in the meeting, Vohden attacked Senator Oroho's legislative team again.  Then -- after bemoaning Sussex County's decline in population (due to job loss), property taxes, and resulting foreclosures -- Freeholder Vohden made this stunning remark:  "As Freeholders we have no direct statutory authority to act on these issues." 

He must be crazy.  Not only do Freeholders set the county portion of every property tax bill, they have an important role in creating a pro-job, pro-growth environment in the county. Vohden looks like he is trying to shift blame for his own failures to the legislators, even as he seeks to lecture them about state issues.

Looks like he is beginning his 2016 re-election campaign early.

Playing games with SCMUA

In 2012, Sussex County Freeholders Phil Crabb and Rich Zeoli tried to sell a "crisis" to Sussex County taxpayers:  The county landfill was nearing capacity and would be full by 2018.  Something would have to be done. 

That something was a special "subcommittee" made up of Crabb, Zeoli, and three insiders.  That subcommittee took decision making away from Sussex County’s 24 municipalities -- which had control over the future of waste disposal for the county’s residents -- through each municipality's representation on the Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC). 

According to the Herald, the subcommittee had planned to give the Freeholder Board its recommendation by the end of 2012.  The Herald reported that Zeoli said “the subcommittee also is interested in ideas from private businesses as to what to do with trash generated in the county.” 

Another private-public partnership?  Like solar?

As it turned out, the municipalities rebelled at the idea of a subcommittee taking away their decision-making.  The subcommittee was scrapped, the idea of turning the landfill over to private developers was dropped, and -- surprise, surprise -- the threatened closure date of 2018 turned out not to be true and now the county landfill could remain viable until 2066. 

Now Crabb is back at it again.  In a few weeks, he and Freeholder Vohden will lose the power they have over Sussex County -- the power they've exercised since 2011, when they assumed control over the Board and came to an arrangement with the then County Administrator and other establishment figures.  That ended in the dust of the solar scandal.

Crabb and Vohden are desperate to appoint as many allies as they can before the clock runs out.  So they are attacking anyone who gets in their way.  Their most recent victims are the SCMUA board members who were attacked for receiving benefit packages for their work.  The attackers ignored the fact that Crabb, alone among Sussex County Freeholders, receives taxpayer-paid benefits. 

If you thought this transfer of power was going to be dignified, think again.

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.