Misinformation spinning about TTF meeting

The following headline appeared in yesterday's New Jersey Herald:

"Oroho will meet with local officials to explain benefits of gas tax proposal."

That headline is a total misrepresentation.  It is untrue.

So is the first paragraph:  " With four Sussex County municipalities now on record against raising New Jersey's gasoline tax, Republican state Sen. Steve Oroho is planning to host a July 27 closed-door meeting with local and county officials to discuss why he believes a higher gas tax coupled with tax cuts elsewhere offers the best approach to rescuing the state's transportation trust fund."

This is also false.  Another misrepresentation.

The invitation to the July 27th meeting is crystal clear about what the meeting is for.  The invitation states that it is to "discuss the spending side of TTF and ways to control costs and become more efficient in the use of taxpayer' money."

So why the misinformation?

The reporter who wrote this story also wrote a devastating attack in the Herald on Byram councilman David Gray when he was challenging George Graham earlier this year.  Many credit that attack for turning the tide in Freeholder's contest. 

The reporter is close to the likes of Tom Walsh and John Jack Burke, who launched their own misleading attack on Senator Steve Oroho, in the form of a resolution and subsequent commentary that slyly inferred that the Senator supported a proposal put forward by Governor Chris Christie and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto.  This inference was, of course, completely false and untrue.

Meanwhile their colleague, Andover Township Mayor Dolores Blackburn, used the article to express her support for the "gas tax ONLY" proposal of far-left Senator Ray Lesniak, a Union County Democrat.  That's right, the Andover Township Council supports a 25 cents a gallon increase on the gasoline tax, phased in over three years.

Of course, Democrat Senator Lesniak's bill would ONLY raise the gas tax.  Unlike Senator Oroho's compromise legislation, or the Governor's  compromise legislation, the Democrat legislation supported by Andover Township would not eliminate the tax on retirement income, it would not cut the sales tax, it would not end the estate tax, it would not provide for an earned income tax credit, or an income tax deduction for charitable contributions, or an income tax deduction for the gasoline tax, or the elimination of property taxes for disabled veterans.

The Andover Township council supports legislation that ONLY raises the gas tax by 25 cents over three years -- WITHOUT any accompanying tax cuts!

The article correctly noted that in November 2014, the Sussex County Board of Freeholders unanimously supported a resolution to send a letter of support to an organization advocating for an increase in the gasoline tax as a way to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF).  The Sussex County Freeholders even sent a copy of their letter to Senator Steve Oroho to lobby him to support the effort to fund the TTF.  Oddly enough, some of the same people who supported that resolution and asked Senator Oroho to support it too, are now attacking Oroho for essentially doing what they asked him to do. It goes to show that you just can't win in "Sex County" --  they will concoct a reason to screw you no matter what you do.

In a strange non sequitur, the article attempts to challenge this resolution by bringing up an unrelated resolution:

"Unmentioned in Oroho's statement was a subsequent resolution unanimously approved by the freeholders last year that called for an independent investigation into the money New Jersey spends on transportation projects before any new taxes are approved."

Unmentioned by the reporter who wrote this story is the fact that Senator Oroho's legislation includes such a review committee and has a much greater chance of being passed than does any similar investigatory legislation.  By leaving out such important details we can only conclude that the reporter meant to attack Steve Oroho by claiming that he was not doing what he is clearly doing -- and doing better than anyone else.

To counter the New Jersey State League of Municipalities support of a user's tax on gasoline to fund road and bridge maintenance and repair, the reporter rolled out the chair of the Sussex County League of Municipalities, Hopatcong councilman Richard Bunce.  This organization had been moribund until George Graham and others resuscitated it a few years ago.

Bunce, a long-time Oroho hater who supported Guy Gregg in the 2007 Senate race, was allowed to side-step commenting on the State organization's position so that he could engage in a full-frontal attack on Senator Oroho.  Of course, we know why.  The county affiliate is chartered by the State League of Municipalities and it was this group that was so understanding when the Sussex organization ran into some financial irregularities not long ago.  In any case, Bunce showed a mixture of contempt and ignorance when he smugly dismissed going to the July 27th meeting and then gave, as his reason for not going, the best reason for going:

 "I appreciate that Steve is on a big information blitz, and I'm not boycotting it.  But there's no reason for me to go and listen to what I already know and disagree with."

"Our senators and Assembly would do well to first cut costs and get spending under control before even a hint of new taxes is spoken of."

Didn't you read the invitation, Richard Bunce?  Finding ways to "cut costs and get spending under control" is what the July 27th meeting is all about.  And the reason it is so important now is that, without a plan to fund the TTF, the money to counties and local governments like yours is drying up, which means that very soon, property taxes are going up.

Of course, if you don't have any ideas on how to address any of this...

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:

Email links solar and Gray-Gorman

An email sent on Monday from a website affiliated with the Freeholder campaign of David Gray and Kathleen Gorman used the address of an attorney from Hillsborough, Somerset County.  The attorney, Frank 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 investigated this story and it seems that about the same time attorney David Gray asked longtime Sussex County consultant Bill Winkler to work for him, attorney Whittlesey also reached out to Winkler, at the direction of unnamed interests, to work digging up dirt on Freeholder George Graham and Hopatcong Mayor Sylvia Petillo.  Winkler turned down working for Gray and whoever sent Whittlesey and has been on the receiving end of a very public campaign of personal harassment since.

Winkler told Watchdog that he was contacted by the New Jersey Herald and, at their request, released a series of recorded messages from Whittlesey left on his voice mail.  The messages, we are told, make explicit references to "the Sussex matter." 

David Gray is a Morris County attorney who lives in Sussex County.  He reportedly has ties to former Morris Freeholder and solar player John Inglesino. Whittlesey is another out-of-county attorney connected to politicians who supported solar.  Why are Morris and Somerset County insiders so interested in deciding the make-up of the next Sussex County Freeholder Board?

FYI:  Inglesino, also an attorney, received national attention when he represented a teen-aged girl who sued her parents so that she could live at Inglesino's house as an "adult."

The story was extensively covered in the media.  Here is a article from the Star-Ledger and you can access others from the newspaper's website.  Read it yourself.

http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/03/nj_teen_rachel_canning_sues_parents_morris_county.html

Somebody doesn't want his picture taken with Fanale

Jennifer Jean Miller over at NJ Inside Scene had a well-written, personal story about her troubled relationship with David Fanale and his fiancée.   It featured a photograph of a group of people at a recent event.  Standing side by side was the former Franklin Councilman and Republican Sussex County Freeholder George Graham.  Everyone looked happy.

But apparently someone wasn't happy because a few hours later the photograph was cropped. 

Is the Sussex County GOP about to go Orwell on us?  Are they going to act like David Fanale, once a Republican Party County Committeeman and an elected Republican on Franklin Borough Council, wasn't part of their organization?  Are they going to deny that they supported him and that he supported them?  Is he in danger of becoming a nonperson?

It looks like the cleansing has already begun.

It's funny that it's starting with Freeholder Graham, who tried mightily to cleanse from existence all memory of his long history as a Democrat political consultant in Hudson County and as an elected Democrat in Sussex County who switched to Republican then back to Democrat to vote in the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Primary and then back to Republican to pursue bigger things.  Talk to him today and he's a Ronald Reagan/ Steve Lonegan kind of guy.

Well, they're not called politicians for nothing.

By  the way, Watchdog got hold of the original photograph and, as an aid to honest memory, is publishing it here.  Outside of former Councilman Fanale, who published some unworthy and juvenile stuff on Facebook, nobody in the photo has anything to be ashamed of.  They didn't do anything wrong.  However, whoever demanded that the photo be cropped is guilty of tampering with the historic record, and with the truth.

David Fanale could be a pleasant, charming person.  He is a human being and like the rest of us has his mix of good and bad.  As an elected official he took a controversial route and his means of expressing his position crossed the line into juvenile and unworthy antics.  It finished him as a councilman in Franklin.

So here's the lesson for the Sussex County GOP.  The positions held by David Fanale were always there.  They were not new.  But as with so much else, the leaders and members of the Sussex Republican power structure see only what they want to see.  So-and-so is a nice guy, let's not see the fact that he switched back to his old party to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.  So-and-so is a good guy, so let's not see the fact that he's using his official position to lobby on behalf of county vendors.  So-and-so is a real friendly guy, so let's not see the fact that he gets a little unhinged when he starts talking about the police.

Instead of purging history and indulging in make-believe, shouldn't it be time for you to wake up?

Did Sussex Republicans go for Gay Marriage?

Besides being achieved at the expense of the District 24 legislators, U.S. Senate candidate Rich Pezzullo’s 44 percent showing in Sussex County was a shocker for another reason:  Alone among the four Republicans running for their party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, Pezzullo supported gay marriage.

That’s right.  Steve Lonegan protégé Rick Shaftan’s candidate for United States Senate supported gay marriage and opposed the death penalty in all circumstances – even for terrorists, serial killers, and criminals who murder innocent children.   He said so at the very start of his campaign and it was reported in the Star-Ledger on March 3, 2014:

On social issues, Pezzullo is not easily classified. He opposes abortion and says he is pro-gun rights. But he also favors permitting same-sex marriage and opposes the death penalty.

“My Second Amendment friends love me, but they have a problem with me because I don’t support the death penalty," he said. "My pro-life friends love me because I’m 100% pro-life, but they have problems with me because I support marriage equality. Everybody has a reason not to vote for me, and yet when they allow me to explain all the thought that went into my positions they see I don’t shoot from the hip.”

Of course, knowing this wouldn’t have presented a problem for Shaftan, a consultant for Hudson County Democrat State Senator (and Mayor and School Superintendent) Nick Sacco.  Sacco is on record as voting for gay marriage in the State Senate.  

One Sussex County elected official who supported Rich Pezzullo was Freeholder George Graham, as did some of those associated with Graham’s Sussex County League of Municipalities. Were they aware of Pezzullo’s position on gay marriage and the death penalty?

Pezzullo also enjoyed support from the Tea Party movement in Sussex County.  Team New Jersey and Tpath sent out endorsements for Pezzullo that claimed to have researched his positions on the issues.

Does this mean that Tea Partiers like Roseann Salanitri and Bader Qarmout now support gay marriage?

We can’t be sure, but here is what Team New Jersey/Tpath wrote in their endorsement:

May 31, 2014 ~TPATH~ This release is a collaboration between the founder of TeamNJ, Mr. Nicholas Purpura and TPATH.  First we would like to apologize to our readers and TeamNJ members for not getting this release out earlier.  We have spent much time evaluating and vetting each of the four candidates vying for the Republican Primary for United States Senate.

Richard J. Pezzullo is a good solid conservative.  He has fire in his belly.  He is as in tune with the pulse of the people and understands the fury in all of us.  He too has that fury.  He is unashamed of his conservative values and never fails to espouse them.  TeamNJ and TPATH are convinced the Mr. Pezzullo will be a force in the United States Senate and will align with great Senators like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.

TEAM NEW JERSEY and TPATH - 

Strongly support Mr. Richard J. Pezzullo for the US Senate

TPATH Note:
Several of our readers have requested information on which candidate we were supporting.  At the time Murray Sabrin appeared to be the best candidate and we indicated that to a few people.  Since then however our research has been completed and we are now in complete agreement with TeamNJ that Richard Pezzullo is the best candidate.  But as we said, Murray Sabrin is a good man.

Note to the vetting committee at Team New Jersey and Tpath:  Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz do not support gay marriage.  Also, saying you don’t like Jeff Bell because he once worked for Richard Nixon is something you would not apply to Pat Buchanan or Robert Bork, so why say it?

 You have to wonder what level of research was done that these people didn’t figure out that Pezzullo was for gay marriage and against the death penalty.  The Star-Ledger story appeared on March 3, 2014, right after Pezzullo won his first convention.  It is one of the first things that come up when you Google his name. 

Sussex County Republicans probably had no idea what they were voting for on June 3^rd but instead relied on the recommendations of local people who call themselves “conservative” or members of the “Tea Party”.  On the other hand, the people who promoted Rich Pezzullo in Sussex County should have known his position on these issues and if they did, it shows an interesting evolution on the part of the Tea Party, here in Sussex County and across New Jersey.