Freeholder Graham tries to pull fast one on taxpayers

Sussex County Freeholder boss George Graham is desperate to change the subject in advance of the Freeholder Board's upcoming September 13th meeting. Remember that at the Board's last meeting, Freeholder Graham wouldn't allow public comment at a session devoted to the $500,000 "review" of the solar project.

Taxpayers were made to grin and bear the fact that in January 2016, Freeholder Graham hired the same lawyer to review the project whose office had signed-off on the project in 2011.  Graham is desperate to hide the fact that this lawyer was deeply conflicted, in the opinion of many. 

To get Graham's "version" out, the Freeholder boss turned to his old pal Bill Hayden, a Trenton-based bureaucrat at the New Jersey Department of Transportation.  Hayden, who ran for office in June, is under some stress at work for allegedly running his blog on state time and posting threats about those associated with the Sussex County Republican Party. 

To get around this, Hayden's blog announced that it was "under new management" and then promptly went back to doing what the state told him not to do.  Hey, when you are at work -- collecting a salary, benefits, and a pension courtesy of the taxpayers of New Jersey -- you should do what you are supposed to do. . . work!

Taking a page out of convicted Bridgegate felon David Wildstein's book, the blog announced that a new editor named "Dan Haines" was now writing the stories.  In fact -- just like Wildstein's "Wally Edge" (a long dead former New Jersey politician), "Daniel Haines" is long dead too.  He was the 14th Governor of New Jersey (1843-45).  He was born in New York City and died in Hamburg, Sussex County in 1877.  The Facebook page of "editor" Dan Haines has him as being born in New York City and currently residing in Hamburg.  Yes, these idiots are not much on imagination. 

Oh, and Governor Haines was a Democrat.  Having a long-dead Democrat politician attack Sussex County Republicans makes a lot of sense, when you remember that George Graham was himself a Democrat -- a Hudson County Democrat, where the dead regularly vote!  Yep, boss Graham sure does a lot of switching --from Democrat to Republican back to Democrat and now to Republican again.  Want to bet what he'll be if Democrat Phil Murphy wins the Governor's office in November?

So the "new management" thing is a lie.  We expect other lies to follow, in what promises to be a sad attempt by Freeholder boss Graham to change the subject from why he wasted $500,000 on a report that nobody is allowed to question in public. 

It's sad because it won't work.  The taxpayers of Sussex County are smarter than boss Graham and will demand to know why a 62-page report  -- costing Sussex County taxpayers $500,000 ($8,064 per page) -- never once mentions the role of the office that signed-off on the project.  And why Graham hired the lawyer who ran that office to do the review.  It's the $500,000 question (actually $518,000 and rising) and the people want to know.

Every politician has an attack dog

One-party states don't have "negative" campaigns.  In one-party states all the candidates share the same "insider" perspective and everyone thinks everyone else is a "goodfella" because they all are.  The Soviet Union had elections, so did National Socialist Germany, but they didn't have campaigns that focused on the contrast between candidates because none existed (outside of hair color, height, weight, age, and so on).

So when you hear a person complaining about the "negativity" of a campaign, what they are really complaining about is democracy.  Because it is only in democracies that you find "negative campaigning". Everywhere else you find detainment camps.  And when you read about this pundit or that talking about the good old days of early American democracy, remember that those good old days featured negative campaigns that would make today's campaigners blush. 

Every political operation has it's attack dogs.  They vary in terms of competence but they are all there none-the-less doing battle on behalf of a candidate or, in the case of this election, a government vendor with a contract before the county.

So here's a run-down on how Watchdog sees the attack dogs of election 2015:

Phil Crabb and Rich Vohden have one...

The Sussex County GOP has one too...

 

Marie Bilik has two...

 

Warren County's GOP takes a different approach...

 

There's a reason the Essex GOP leaves Sussex in the dust...

 

But the Hometown Conservative Team had one...

 

As for Parker Space.  He doesn't have an attack dog, but he has a tiger named Chris Russell...

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: