Freeholder Graham's anonymous blog

After spending much of the last few years complaining about anonymous blogs that persisted in calling him out on his less than savory activities, Freeholder George Graham decided to start one of his own -- and it is a real doozy. 

We all knew that George Graham was the master of "whisper" campaigns, those under-handed attempts to spread unsubstantiated rumors and outright lies about people, but give this guy a computer and he really goes ape!  And he had some help too.  A reporter from the Herald, a big-shot member of the Tea Party, and whoever else he could scam. 

The Tea Partier allowed Graham to use the group's name for his blog.  This was done within memory of a stormy lawsuit that the Tea Party had to go through in which they lost the use of their original name.  Why place the group in jeopardy again?  Normally it is older women who fall for George's sweet-talk, but this time it appears to have worked on a guy. 

This blog -- which is trying to corrupt a Tea Party group by using its name -- has spread rumors that Gail Phoebus had an inappropriate relationship with her consultant, Bill Winkler, and that other elected officials had taken bribes.  The blog was publicly admonished by the State of New Jersey for claiming that the Office of Legislative Services was conducting a criminal investigation in Sussex County.  It simply wasn't true.  They totally made it up.

Now they are trying to claim that someone who did the right thing, did the wrong thing.  Freeholder George Graham is trying to claim that simply by following Ethics rules to the letter that makes someone a suspect.  This is one of his whisper campaigns, converted to social media. 

And who is pulling Graham's string?  After all, he is a political consultant.  That is his only source of income... or is it?  His LinkedIn page provides connections to vendors and contractors that do not appear on his Ethics filing: 

Freeholder

Sussex County

April 2013 – Present (3 years 5 months) | Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders

Construction Project Manager

LaRocca Construction

1991 – Present (25 years) | Jersey City, NJ

Various positions from project timeline oversight, customer relations to complete supervision of multi-

million dollar public bid construction. Work on a project by project basis.

Owner

York Strategies

2003 – Present (13 years) | Jersey City, NJ

York Strategies is a Strategic Planning and Public Relations with experience in government and

corporate marketing.

I have also produced media for private companies and organizations including direct mail, radio and

television, newspaper, magazine and internet ads.

Owner

Skylands Business Services

1987 – Present (29 years)

Small business support for bookkeeping & marketing.

Secretary/Treasurer

Sussex County League of Municipalities

January 2012 – Present (4 years 8 months) | Newton, NJ

Former President and Vice President 2009 -2010

But his Personal Financial Disclosure is another thing entirely:

 

Why the discrepancy?

The taxpayers of Sussex County should demand to know who George Graham's clients are?  Who does York Strategies take money from?  Besides Hudson County Democrats, of course.

We all should know the Graham story by now.  A local yokel Democrat political consultant gets pushed out of Hudson County by the bigger fish.  Does odd jobs for some of the politically-connected construction firms out that way.   Moves on the Sussex County market.  Says he's in the "paper business" and a few local businesses get taped and screwed.  Gets elected in Stanhope as a Democrat, switches to Republican, back to Democrat to vote for Barack or Hillary, then back to Republican again. 

Takes over the Sussex County League of Municipalities (which almost immediately experiences "financial irregularities"), one of nature's "ham and eggers" so he needs to play underhanded, he lies and spreads over-the-top rumors in an attempt to push out incumbent Republican political consultant in order to get his business, when that fails, becomes a candidate and wins a Freeholder seat, promptly turns on those who helped him and destroys them (just ask Freeholder Dennis Mudrick). 

As a Freeholder, he is always on the lookout for a dime.  Gets others to pay his bills, fund his campaigns.  Suckers, he calls them.  He participates in every vote to make the solar project worse and then, turns on the board, points the finger, and blames them.  Wrecks any attempt to rationally work a way out of the solar mess by heavily politicizing the issue BUT he does elect his cronies and takes control over the Board.  Promptly hires NYC leftist and forces out long-time, local Republican.  Hires politically-connected NYC law firm to handle solar review -- which goes from a money recovery operation to a therapy session costing half a million dollars.  Gives a no-bid contract to the very lawyers he said were to blame for the solar mess. 

Moves on to state politics.  Sows seeds of discontent between District 24 legislators.  Targets Gail Phoebus, the unstable one, and gets her to spread outrageous rumors about BOTH her running mates and their families.  Horrible, low as dirt stuff they spread, but hey, this is George.  Is there to undo every attempt at reconciliation.  Meanwhile, he is using his political consulting business to cash in.  Claims to be working in other races around the state, claims to be working for a gubernatorial campaign... is he working for some of the firms that do business in Sussex County?  We would need a more detailed ethics filing to find out. 

This is who is running your county government.

This is why Sussex County needs an Ethics Committee.

Workers blame Phoebus for losing jobs

We were asked to publish the story of five area residents who formerly worked for Assemblyperson Gail Phoebus at the country club she owns.  The former employees of the Farmstead Golf and Country Club contacted Watchdog.  One employee identified herself and forwarded a statement and the letter of dismissal from Farmstead.  This is an excerpt from that statement:

The former employees believed that their ages played a role in their firing.  They believe that the legislator's actions "speaks to her character."  Referring to Phoebus' firing of her legislative staff before Thanksgiving and to the further attempts to destroy their reputations and ability to earn an income to provide for their families, the statement notes that "this behavior with Gail Phoebus is nothing new.  She has been treating people badly for quite some time."

In response to accusations that were posted and distributed about legislative staff by members of the Skylands Tea Party group, the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) last week issued a formal statement saying that EVERY accusation made against the innocent staff workers was wholly false and without any basis whatsoever.  In other words, it was all made up.  A fantasy designed to destroy the livelihoods of human beings, their spouses, and their children.

In fairness to Assemblyperson Phoebus, last week Watchdog offered to publish her response to the above statement by her employees, unedited.  Instead of a straightforward response for us to print, her campaign circulated rumors that suggested blame be placed elsewhere and that she was away at the time -- this time not at the Colorado ranch but in sunny Florida.

When will she own up?

Farmstead workers blame Phoebus for firing

We have been asked to publish the story of five area residents who formerly worked for Assemblyperson Gail Phoebus at the country club she owns.  The former employees of the Farmstead Golf and Country Club contacted Watchdog.  One employee identified herself and forwarded a statement and the letter of dismissal from Farmstead.  This is an excerpt from that statement:

The former employees believed that their ages played a role in their firing.  They believe that the legislator's actions "speaks to her character."  Referring to Phoebus' firing of her legislative staff before Thanksgiving and to the further attempts to destroy their reputations and ability to earn an income to provide for their families, the statement notes that "this behavior with Gail Phoebus is nothing new.  She has been treating people badly for quite some time."

In response to the accusations that were posted and distributed about legislative staff by members of the Skylands Tea Party group, the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) this week issued a formal statement saying that EVERY accusation made against the innocent staff workers was wholly false and without any basis whatsoever.  In other words, it was all made up.  A fantasy designed to destroy the livelihoods of human beings, their spouses, and their children.

Nevertheless, in fairness to Assemblyperson Phoebus, we understand that there could be another side to this story.  We therefore offer to publish her response to this statement, unedited.

Phoebus: The Legislature's resident nutcase

Every now and then, the behavior of some politician reaches that special level where they go beyond simply being bad and end up somewhere around crazy. 

Who can forget Steve Lipski, standing on a balcony at a night club and literally pissing on the voters below?  Then there's Charles Mainor, a Democrat Assemblyman who told voters that he couldn't figure out how websites like "Big Bootie Freaks" made it on to his Facebook page.  On the national level, we've all heard of Anthony Weiner and Hillary Clinton. 

Well move over, because now there's Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus.

Phoebus forwarded emails that revealed a variety of questionable dealings, including compromising the Open Public Meetings Act.  She forwarded the emails from her personal email address, during a period of time when she was a member of the Sussex County Freeholder Board.  But that didn't stop Phoebus from claiming that the computer at her Assembly office had been "hacked" and that legislative aides were in on the "conspiracy."  Forget the fact that she didn't have a legislative office or a legislative computer or was even a member of the Legislature when she forwarded the emails. 

Phoebus would simply forward the sensitive emails to recipients asking what they thought or as parts of chains in response to routine questions, like a telephone number inquiry.  Suffice to say that Phoebus is something of an Internet moron.

Taking personal responsibility is not something Phoebus is comfortable with, so instead, she lied.  Even worse, she involved OLS -- the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services.  Her campaign claimed that OLS had conducted an FBI-style raid on her district office, seizing computers, naming suspects, and "locking down" her legislative office.  But none of it happened, none of it was true.  And when called on it, the campaign claimed it was "satire."

Let's place this into perspective.  Phoebus is not as crazy as Sussex County can get, like the candidate for Sheriff who ended up arrested for conspiring with other cannibals.  Or the candidate for Freeholder who tried to hire a hit man.  Phoebus isn't that kind of howl-at-the-moon crazy.  She's just the kind of crazy who believes that if you imagine something, and then repeat it often enough, that makes it true.  That's a far cry from writing recipes where the main course is your next-door neighbor.

And to be fair to Phoebus, this isn't the only push back her campaign is making, now that she has been cut from the GOP ticket and replaced by former Labor Commissioner Hal Wirths.  Facing a team with more than $250,000 in its coffers, Phoebus has mustered $15,000.  So she's resorted to a, shall we say, "unique" style of campaigning.  This is what her campaign was pushing last week:

Yes, those are what you think they are.  Like we said, some crazy stuff.

Bat-shit crazy!