The SCCC Trustees need a Conscience

Harry Dunleavy is right when he argues that the Sussex County Community Colleges Board of Trustees needs more people with backgrounds in science and math.  There are some very good people on the Board, but their backgrounds are concentrated heavily in the legal and corporate communities -- with a few education bureaucrats thrown in.  The personality of the Board is collegial and non-confrontational. 

What is really needed is another Dan Perez -- a Conscience who is not afraid to stir things up, call out wrongdoing, and say what has to be said.  We doubt that will happen any time soon, because the last time ended with the very public revelation that at least one trustee was self-dealing -- collecting money from a vendor to the SCCC while promoting contracts to that vendor.  Several trustees were forced into early retirement over the scandal -- with some claiming that they did not understand that what occurred was ethically wrong.  It was a real mess.

Maybe the time has come to elect the SCCC Board of Trustees, in the same way that the voters elect local Boards of Education.  This would remove questions of insider-control over the SCCC Board of Trustees and would give qualified candidates for Trustee -- like Harry Dunleavy -- the opportunity to take their argument directly to the taxpayers who pay for the college.  Of course, the election process should be non-partisan -- unconnected to any political party or group -- to give opportunity to the broadest spectrum of perspective.

Glen Vetrano: Man of the Year???

If anyone wonders why Sussex County is getting a reputation as a corrupt backwater, look no further than who was named "man of the year" by the Branchville Businessmen's Club.  No, it's not the 1970's.  Yes, it is a businessMEN's club.  Sussex County still has them. 

For some reason, the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority (SCMUA) promoted the event, which was held last week.  So who did they name? 

The Branchville Businessmen’s Club announces the recognition of Glen Vetrano as its Man-of-the-year, 2014. He will be honored at the open meeting of the organization to be held at the Walpack Inn on November 20, 2014.  A 6:00 PM cocktail hour will be followed by a brief meeting and sit down dinner with recognition activities to honor Glen specifically citing his many contributions to the club and Sussex County Community.  Glen is a long term member of the club and has served actively on the executive committee with special attention to the Membership function of the Club.  He is a past President of the BBMC, serving back to back during 2012 and 2013.  Glen is a retired Firefighter with the rank of Lieutenant for the Paterson Fired Department. Glen will be recognized for his contributions to the our club and to Sussex County including: past freeholder, Board Member to Sussex County Community College, The Sussex County Farm and Horse Show/NJ State Fair and many other contributions to other organizations.  We invite friends and associates to join us to recognize Glen.  The cost is $30 for dinner, reservations are recommended.

Shouldn't that be former "Board Member to Sussex County Community College"?  Isn't he the guy who had to resign after he got caught breaking ethics rules, voting on a contract for a vendor he took money from, not reporting it on his official financial disclosure, and then not telling the truth about it?  After finally admitting to it, he had to resign.  How does that sort of behavior merit an award or the title "Man of the Year"? 

Maybe Sussex County can't help itself?  Maybe it is stuck in a kind of small town mentality that won't let it grow up and recognize that people can be capable of both good and bad?

The Republican Mayor of Sparta gets in trouble, the former Democratic County Committee Chairman is sentenced to six months in prison, a former Sussex County newspaper editor is convicted of abusing two girls, a Franklin Councilman has to resign over juvenile Facebook posts, and everyone uniformly expresses shock and cannot understand why such a "nice guy" suddenly turned bad.  Maybe the bad was there all along but they couldn't get past the small town smile?

Take the case of former Sussex County Undersheriff and Byram Councilman Rick Meltz.  He was the quintessential "nice guy" and small town "goodfella".  Everybody liked the guy -- until he was arrested in 2013 for his involvement with New York's infamous "cannibal cop", the NYPD's Gilberto Valle, who planned to stalk, kill, and eat his female victims. 

In January 2014, the Honorable Councilman Meltz pleaded guilty to planning to kidnap, rape, and murder women.  According to the New Jersey Herald, Meltz and his co-conspirators planned to "attack and kill multiple victims, including the wife, children and other family members of a co-conspirator."  Meltz and his co-conspirators also discussed what they referred to as the "snuffing" of "women, children, and infants."  With the FBI's tapes rolling, the former Undersheriff dispensed tips on how to kill without getting caught, such as "removing a victim’s teeth to avoid dental identification, taking off the fingers to avoid fingerprint identification, and chopping off and disposing of the head."

This is an extreme case for sure and nobody is trying to equate the crimes of Councilman Meltz with ethics violations.  The example is used because even in this extreme case those interviewed by the Herald expressed complete shock that this "nice guy" was capable of anything improper.  Take the poor Mayor of Byram for example.  He told the Herald:  "I was shocked when he was arrested and now equally shocked that he pleaded guilty. . . I took over Rick’s spot on the council and lived in the same neighborhood as he did."  The Mayor added that Meltz was always a "nice guy" and that "his house was the one in the neighborhood that one would consider safe."  The Byram Mayor told the Herald, "His was the house that you told the kids to go to if something bad happened."

On June 2, 1998, Rick Meltz nearly won the Republican nomination for Sussex County Sheriff.  Meltz lost to incumbent Bob Untig 4,406 to 4,752.  A close call.

Was that wrong?

" After speaking with each of the three Trustees who had relationships with CP, it became apparent that none of them recognized or appreciated what the College's  Ethics Code or New Jersey law required of them when votes relating to CP came before the College's Board. Rather than making full disclosure to all members of the Board of their relationships with CP, the three Trustees did not disclose their various relationships with CP   and merely abstained or, in some instances, voted on these matters."

 It is beginning to sound like a Seinfeld episode.  

SCCC report: A Lack of Character

For more than a month Sussex County residents have been reading a slowly unraveling serial about corruption in their county.  Along with millions of taxpayer dollars, the credibility of Sussex County Community College (SCCC) is at stake. 

The story reads like a mystery novel:  Corporations with hidden relationships with people in power.  Shadow entities through which government contracts flow.  The highly respected college "trustee" and bigwig in the Sussex County Republican Party who swore he didn't know that his vote had anything to do with sending taxpayers' money to a company that paid him, then swore that he didn't take money from that company, then admitted that he did take money, then offered no plausible explanation on why he hadn't reported his relationship on state ethics forms as required by law.

Why did it happen?  Why us?  Why Sussex County?

Towards the end of its 25-page report released to the public today, the law firm hired by the SCCC to investigate itself made this stunning finding:

" After speaking with each of the three Trustees who had relationships with CP, it became apparent that none of them recognized or appreciated what the College's  Ethics Code or New Jersey law required of them when votes relating to CP came before the College's Board. Rather than making full disclosure to all members of the Board of their relationships with CP, the three Trustees did not disclose their various relationships with CP and merely abstained or, in some instances, voted on these matters."

Those in question are lawyers and law-makers.  These are highly successful men who know their way around board rooms, court rooms, and the halls of power.  Are we really being asked to believe that these people do not understand right from wrong? 

Who doesn't understand that it is wrong to take money from a vendor that wants a contract from a unit of government you exercise control over?  And if you have a doubt, you bring it up and ask your fellow board members about it.  You don't lie by omission in the hope that nobody will notice.

Either Sussex County is unique in that some of its most prominent citizens do not understand right from wrong or we have people of such character that they refuse to recognize right from wrong.

The issue is character. 

Listen below to the U.S. Naval Academy's ethics instructor on the importance of character.

If you want to read the full report, please follow this link:  http://www.njherald.com/link/710372/investigative-report-re-bidding-process-for-sccc-building-d

Sussex County needs an Ethics Committee

For more than a month Sussex County residents have been reading a slowly unraveling serial about corruption in their county.  Millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake.  Corporations with hidden relationships with people in power.  Shadow entities through which government contracts flow.  It reads like a mystery novel.

It's all there, along with the highly respected college "trustee" and bigwig in the Sussex County Republican Party who swore he didn't know that his vote had anything to do with sending taxpayers' money to a company that paid him, then swore that he didn't take money from that company, then admitted that he did take money, then offered no plausible explanation on why he hadn't reported his relationship on state ethics forms as required by law.  Why should he? 

In Sussex County there are those elected officials who scoff at the law.  The same Sussex County GOP that harbored the now disgraced former Sussex County Community College Trustee (and former County Freeholder) Glen Vetrano endorsed Freeholder Phil Crabb for re-election despite him operating a campaign account in secret for over four years , while he refused to follow state ethics law and file campaign finance reports.

In some counties, a wanton screw-up like Crabb would have been quietly asked to step aside.  Examples abound in other parts of the state.  Not in Sussex County.  Wantonly, purposefully, breaking the ethics rules doesn't matter.  Crabb's reward for breaking the law year in and year out was a fundraiser held in his honor at the wine cellar of the all-too-powerful Mulvihill corporate clan.

We mention Freeholder Crabb because he brought his unethical behavior to mind when he was quoted in a New Jersey Herald column last week discussing open government and transparency for which he expressed support for same, providing that it was at the "appropriate" level.  We can only suppose that based on his actions Freeholder Crabb would like to see campaign reporting laws rolled back to the pre-Watergate era.  By his actions Crabb has stated loud and clear what he thinks is "appropriate" and that is that the voting and taxpaying public has no right to know who is paying for an elected official's campaign and about what that official is spending the money he collects on.

The truth is that the ethics laws we have now are too weak.  The penalties are such that public officials like former Freeholder Vetrano and Freeholder Crabb feel safe ignoring them.  They laugh at the ethics laws enacted to protect the taxpaying public. 

The current ethics laws have too many loopholes.  For example, a Freeholder could set up a consulting business and accept money from vendors who do business with the county or powerful interests with matters before the county.  Those clients would not be listed on the annual ethics filings required, only the name of the consulting business would be listed.  It would be up to the "good faith" of the elected official to voluntarily disclose his conflict.

Sussex County is losing population and along with it, economic activity.  There is less and less private money and government is the only growth industry.  The result is that more and more vendors have joined the chase after government contracts.  A few years ago they resorted to forming a vendors' PAC to get around state pay-to-play laws.  The latest has been to create formal or informal relationships with high-ranking office holders or party bigwigs to use politics to secure contracts.  This subverts the peoples' business.  The best for the least ("doing more with less") should be the only consideration when considering a contract, not whose buddy is on whose payroll.

It is time for the taxpaying voters of Sussex County to get involved.  If the politicians will not police themselves then we, the people, must do it for them.

For training purposes, here is the first part of a four-part series on ethics and leadership: