Leaked Letter: Who negotiated solar contract?

We learned last week from a leaked email that political consultant/ attorney Dan Perez was discussing the hiring of a New York City law firm to look into the failed solar project long before the Freeholders who voted for it were even elected.  Here is the email from April 2015, months before the Freeholders who voted for the contract were elected (their primary was in June 2015 and they were elected in November 2015).  Check out item number 5:

Freeholder Richard Vohden asked much the same question in January 2016, when the contract to give the New York City lawyer firm a $500,000.00 blank check from the taxpayers of Sussex County came up for a vote.  Freeholder Vohden asked a simple question:  Who was involved in negotiating the $500,000.00 taxpayer-funded contract that they were about to hand over to a NYC law firm?  It doesn't appear as though Freeholder Vohden was ever provided with an answer.

January 2016 was an important month for some.  It was the month that this NYC law firm got a $500,000.00 contract from the taxpayers of Sussex County and it was the month that Freeholder George Graham engineered the replacement, as SCMUA commissioner, of a long-time Sussex County Republican with Dan Perez, who is decidedly not a keeper of the GOP flame.

It should be remembered that Perez himself came from a well-connected New York City law firm with a decidedly Leftist perspective.  Perez got his start under that old Marxist William Kunstler -- who was the lawyer for the Marxist Weather Underground terrorist movement  and the Marxist Black Panther Party.   Kunstler did not believe that Republicans and other "right-wingers" should be defended and famously said:  "I only defend those whose goals I share. I'm not a lawyer for hire. I only defend those I love."

Having clerked for Kunstler, after he died Perez would continue with and later become managing partner in a firm with Ron Kuby, Kunstler's old partner.  At the time of Kunstler's death, he and Kuby were defending Omar Abdel-Rahman ("the Blind Sheik") for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Stay tuned...

Leaked Email: Perez sets Agenda/ who picked Boxer?

Ever wonder how the taxpayers of Sussex County ended up on the hook for a $500,000.00 contract to hire a New York City law firm?  Whose idea was it to hire the firm?  Did the selection process begin in the open, at the Freeholder Board meeting in Newton, or did it take place months earlier at a political campaign meeting about taking over the Freeholder Board?

In January 2016, one of the first acts of the incoming Freeholder Board under Freeholder Director George Graham was to hire a New York City law firm to conduct a review of the failed solar project in Sussex County.  As the New Jersey Herald reported on January 28, 2016:

A private investigation of Sussex County's embattled solar project, to be led by ex-State Comptroller Matthew Boxer, gained authorization Wednesday night.

In a 3-2 vote, the county freeholder board approved an agreement hiring Boxer and his firm, Lowenstein Sandler LLP. The review will take up to a year, with the payments by the county to the law firm capped at $500,000.

(Note that the review which was to "take up to a year" is still not completed.)

Did the choice of this firm emerge from the elected Freeholder Board, in open and public discussion?  Or did it come from somewhere else, long before the majority of those freeholders voting in favor of it were even elected?

"Post to a website"?  Whatever could he mean?

And what is with the urge to file ethics complaints against every other attorney in the county?  Clearing away the competition?  Good thing cooler political heads prevailed, reminding people that this was only a political campaign and that after the election the winning candidates will want to be friends again with those they defeated.  Those cooler political heads prevented some with darker intentions from attempting to destroy the personal and professional reputations of others. 

For those with darker intentions, it isn't enough to count the votes and win the election (which is all the political people are there for, after all).  But more on this later...