Were workers poisoned at the Cochran House?

What should have been a routine repair turned into yet another major mismanagement fiasco for Sussex County.  It also again raises the question as to whether Sussex County needs an elected County Executive or not.

The Cochran House, was once the old Shelby's department store on Spring Street.  It was converted into office space about 15 years ago and in 2005, county freeholders bought 60 percent of the building (31,600 square feet) for $3 million.  The remaining 40 percent of the building is in private hands, organized as a condo association.

The building needed a new roof, so last month the private owners and their tenants received notice of the potential hazards posed by the planned renovation.  The people working in the 60 percent owned by the county did not.

The work went ahead and when county workers complained about noise pollution and noxious fumes they were offered ear plugs and face masks.  Even the presence of older women and pregnant women did not move the male-dominated Freeholder Board. 

Why?  Because the Freeholder Board no longer calls the shots in Sussex County.  Since the Directorship of Rich Zeoli, when the Freeholder Director and County Administrator John Eskilson planned and plotted much mischief together, the County Administrator has behaved more like an elected County Executive -- with power derived directly from the people, as opposed to being an employee of the Freeholder Board.  This has been especially the case under the Directorship of Freeholder Richard Vohden, who adheres to the philosophy of governance that the elected Freeholder Board merely exists to ratify the decisions of the unelected County Administrator.

Reports are that County Administrator Eskilson simply refused to recognize the problem until county workers began to get sick.  Only then was the air quality tested and the workers sent home.  Cochran House was closed for more than a week, with county services affected and some suspended.

It's just the usual Sussex County cock-up.   Add this to the county dump that had to be sold and then it didn't, the white elephant real estate deals and vendor scams the county has fallen for, the contract to "study" the jail, the solar energy scam, the vendor scandal over at the Sussex County Community College, the water deal in Sussex borough , forcing workers out to make way for political patronage, pension-padding, double-dipping, Zeoli-era lawsuits, the tax abatements handed out to profit-making private corporations that increase property taxes, while local government seeks to tax non-profits that employee people.  The list of cock-ups goes on and on.

Now there's word that some workers are filing claims against the county.  Claims the county's property taxpayers will end up paying for.  If they were poisoned, they deserve compensation, but they shouldn't have been poisoned in the first place.  That was stupidity aided and abetted by placidity.

If the elected Freeholder Director and the Board he controls wants to abrogate responsibility over what the unelected County Administrator does, then it is time for a directly elected County Executive.  In this way the voters can hold him accountable.

What about the rest of them?

As a member of the Board of Trustees of Sussex County Community College (SCCC), former Sussex County Freeholder Glen Vetrano was required by law (N.J.S. 40A:9-22.1 et seq. the Local Government Ethics Law) to file an annual personal Financial Disclosure Statement with the State of New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs, Division of Local Government Services.  Among other things, Vetrano was required to list his sources of income.  The reason for this is simple:  Once listed any obvious conflicts of interest would become apparent to members of the public and the media.

The idea is that if you list that you take money from a certain vendor and then use your official position to do something like voting to approve a contract for that vendor, the conflict of interest would be transparent and you would immediately get called out on it.  But that is not how it worked in the case of Glen Vetrano.

On May 27, 2014, Vetrano filed his Financial Disclosure Statement and swore it was true:

I hereby certify that this Financial Disclosure Statement contains no willful misstatement of fact or omission of material fact and, constitutes a full disclosure with respect to all matters required by N.J.S.A.40A:9-22.1 et seq., to the best of my knowledge. I am aware that if any of the foregoing statements made by me are willfully false, I am subject to fines and possible disciplinary action.

Date: 05/27/2014                                   Name: Glen J. Vetrano

I further certify that I intend my electronic signature on this statement to be the legally binding equivalent of my traditional handwritten signature.

Vetrano reported no income on his Financial Disclosure Statement:

Section II. Financial Information

Provide the following information for yourself and members of your immediate family for the prior calendar year. If none, please indicate NONE in the space provided.

A. List the name and address of each source of income, earned and unearned, which you received in excess of $2,000. If a publicly traded security is the source of income, the security need not be reported unless you or a member of your immediate family has an interest in the business organization.

Name                            Address                        Self/Spouse      Dependent Name

1.         None

Vetrano later admitted that this was false and that he received monthly payments from an engineering firm that did business with the Sussex County Community College.  Vetrano also failed to report the income from his $107,715 annual state pension. 

Vetrano admitted to receiving money from one engineering firm after becoming caught up in a contract scandal that so far has caused two SCCC trustees to resign, Vetrano being one of them.  But sources throughout Sussex County have confirmed that the engineering firm cited in the SCCC scandal is only one of the businesses represented by Glen Vetrano.  Has anyone at Sussex County Community College looked into potential conflicts involving the others?

Because Vetrano reported nothing on his Financial Disclosure Statement, we have no way of knowing whether he did accept money (as he later admitted he did with at least one vendor) or did not accept money from other businesses with whom he had relationships.

The Sussex County Community College administration and trustees should ensure that former SCCC trustee Glen Vetrano correct his Financial Disclosure filed (improperly) on their behalf as a Member of the SCCC Board of Trustees and that the corrected filing include all sources of income from every business with whom he had a relationship. 

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: