Freeholders never took illegal contributions
John Bennett
By John Bennett, Monmouth County Republican Chairman
I am writing in response to the July 13 oped written by Monmouth County Democratic freeholder candidate Brian Froelich, “County purchasing still murky, post-Birdsall.”
From the first sentence to the last, I am disappointed that Froelich has chosen to take an opportunity as a political candidate to make not only misstatements but outright false statements concerning the actions being conducted in Monmouth County.
As to his first statement, that each Monmouth County freeholder received campaign contributions donated illegally by Birdsall Engineering Group, Froelich fully knows and understands that none of the contributions which he sets forth were illegal when they were received by either the Republican freeholders or the former Democratic freeholders who received similar contributions.
In fact, none of the Republican or Democratic freeholders (to our knowledge) received any illegal campaign contributions from any vendor in this county. Many of the Republican and Democratic councilmen and mayors throughout the county also received contributions that were not illegal to those who were receiving them.
There may have been inappropriate actions conducted internally within their office by those giving the money, but that knowledge could not have been made available to any person receiving the money, whether they were Democrat or Republican.
Froelich continues his tirade by attempting to draw certain comparisons and tie certain connections that would appear to be curious if they were not so outrageously twisted. I have served in political and elected office for most of my adult life. When one is running for office, I would only suggest that they put forward a positive program as to what they can accomplish and do better than those who are in office now. Certainly there may be issues for one to raise and discuss; however, Froelich is attempting to do something through a personal and political assassination and does not stick to factual issues or even give one suggestion in his entire article as to how he would improve a system that is currently in place and working very well.
His attacks on the county purchasing agent are ridiculous, and when he ends his article by saying that she maintains “such a high profile political position,” one wonders if being a vice president of a Republican club, to which she has a First Amendment constitutional right to be a member of, is what he is referring to.
My advice for Froelich (not that he would take it), would be one, develop a platform of positive actions he would like to implement in the event he is successful in his campaign, and two, stop personal attacks and raising nonissues that are confusing and meaningless.
I am proud of the work the current freeholders do for our county as well as the work that has been done by previous freeholders, both Republicans and Democrats.
Current freeholders and the most recent Democratic freeholders may have voted for an engineering company that now has been found to have violated campaign laws. However, there is no evidence, nor even a hint, that any of those individuals had knowledge of any inappropriate activities within the company upon the receipt of those donations.
Further, not one Republican or Democratic freeholder has ever been accused of voting for any contract with any vendor in this county because of any political contribution. If Froelich has facts contrary to what I am saying, then I would suggest he immediately take his facts and information to law enforcement people who can actually do something about those claims, as opposed to political rhetoric that only assassinates people’s character and their entire careers for purely political gain.
347-740-8981
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http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals
With this attack, he is employing Rule # 12; the mainstay of the modern Democrat Attack Machine:
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Signed,
Silence Dogood, Redux
that has worked for Dems in years: bereft of ideas or any positive records of service, they personally trash,and grab the cheap headline where they may- it’ll get them a few votes, but they know they will be getting their butts kicked bigtime, this year, up and down ballot..shame on former freeholders Mallett and even John D.-should be beneath them- shows no self respect, and their obvious irrelevance and frustration is showing, now..
Bennett’s comments are the same as all the Freeholders and their defenders. They concede that Birdsall made tens of thousands of dollars of illegal donations to Freeholders for years with the intent to influence county purchasing decisions. Yet they claim that Birdsall didn’t want the Freeholders to know about these same donations and that the donations, in any event, had no influence on their decisions. But the press reported that secret donations flowed like wine, the defendants claimed the scheme worked, and Birdsall got millions of dollars of contracts. And when the Freeholders were asked to reveal if they had received these donations from Birdsall they refused.
Bennett/Freeholders effectively argue that Birdsall was crazy to give them all that money for all those years since they didn’t know he was giving it and he didn’t get anything for it. Crazy like a fox? In a similar situation, Freeholders argued that donations from Republican Andrew Lucas didn’t influence their decision to award him over $1 million for preservation rights.
Voters are entitled to judge the credibility of such defenses.
Bennet’s final comments are also interesting. He carefully limits his corruption definition to Freeholders who have “been accused of voting for any contract with any vendor in this county because of any political contribution.” Is that because the longest serving Republican Freeholder in history, Harry Larrison, Jr., was accused and indicted for accepting bribes from developers?
According to an insider at Birdsall, when employees donated to candidates from their personal wallets, it was specifically written for $299.00 dollars.
This was to let the particular candidate know it was from Birdsall, even though it was written from a Birdsall employees personal checking account.
Bri-Bri:
What up, dude. Again, “illegal donations” are a misnomer, as ELEC has taken no action against any of the freeholders. It’s just an editorial comment by you, playboy.
Now, you’re never going to be a Freeholder. You know that, I know that, my pet iguana knows that. So instead of sludging your way to the coming electoral blowout, tell you what you would do positive for the people of the county.
Bre-Bre,
It is true that the ELEC has taken no action against the Freeholders. But I doubt that the Birdsall defendants think these ‘illegal donations’ were a just ‘misnomer’ or ‘editorial comment’.
Sorry that you don’t consider being honest and transparent with voters and avoiding obvious conflicts something positive. Some voters do.
“Allegedly” my arse.
LOT’S of people across the board on both sides of the aisle make $299.00 contributions. It so that peoples names don’t have to get reported.
Flippy, Larrison is not on the ballot and it is not incumbent on the candidates to investigate whether a crime was committed before they were given donations. There is no crime by a candidate accepting those donations ESPECIALLY because they have no knowledge a crime was committed.
“Some voters do?”
Only “low information” voters grab headlines like you are trying to make and think that a crime was committed, when in truth; it is not. YOU are not being honest and transparent when you don’t tell them that no crime has been committed.
Get over yourself. Stop with the conspiracy theory headlines in order to get some attention. You’ve lost already.
Now, please go throw out your copy of “Rules For Radicals.” Your desperation is showing.
Signed,
Silence Dogood, Redux
Brian Froelich is proving to be the worst candidate the hapless democrats have ever put on the ballot. He is fixated on trying to find something, anything to play ” gotcha” with. Not one word from this empty suit about how he feels about COAH, civil service, Abbott funding, prevailing wage, union excess or any of the other democrat boondoggles that are killing the taxpayers of Monmouth County. Instead, he has latched onto this lame “issue” that no one gives a damn about and more importantly, has shown absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of those receiving these donations. Mr. Froelich, some friendly free advice – get a headstart on your concession speech.
Those aren’t really county issues you mention. I would take Mr. Froelich a little more serious since Mr. Bennett does, i.e. his need to explain that Freeholders did not take any illegal contributions
They absolutely are county issues because they directly affect the people of Monmouth County. Froelich is a typical democrat who cannot discuss substantive issues because as a democrat, he is on the wrong side of every one of them. He is the Titanic of candidates and the iceberg is right in front of him.
Mr. Froehlich, have you called out Senate candidate Booker (D) yet on this “alleged scandal” or are you still just conveniently targeting people?
This is the same group of Republicans that chose to repeal a strong pay-to-play ordinance because it was ‘too confusing and difficult for vendors to comply with’. This is the group led by Burry that said the corruption examplified by Larson (substantiated by his driver and bagman) and Middletown Committeeman O’Grady (former federal prisoner) was a thing of the past. Then the Brookdale scandal broke followed by this pay-to-play episode and Birdstall was associated with both of them.
Have you been listening, or are you deaf young man?
There is NO CRIME (other than what is in Flippy’s delusional mind) . It is not incumbent on a donation recipient to check into the background of a donation made by anyone. Doing so would create chaos and kill off any campaign donations to ANY candidate on either side of the aisle.
So if you want to bite the hand that feeds your Dumbocrap friends, keep it up.
Who in hell would donate to anyone with the fear of someone coming back to them asking “where did you get that money from?”
You and your ilk are trying to create a crime out of thin air, sort of a “post event crime” because you have nothing to run on. Flippy has not put out any positive positions. His only battle is trying to create an argument about “the seriousness of the charge,” rather than REAL facts at hand; all in a desperate attempt to gain some press.
GUESS WHAT? NO one is listening to your bullcrap.
And then you try to dip into past issues with yes, criminals; using their actions to prove that the people that took money from Birdsall are the criminals when they are clearly not.
I swear, you Dumbocrats are SOOOOOO stupid.
Signed,
Silence Dogood,
Redux
Agree, no crime–BUT it seems its inexplicable (or is it?) why Birdsall cut the checks in the first place.
It is entirely “explicable” why Birdsall cut the checks. They wanted to curry favor while skirting laws. Game over, BIRDSALL was the criminal entity, not the candidates receiving them.
BTW, Flippy; how many DEMOCRATS have you “indicted” via this diatribe? Surely a lot of DEMOCRATS had their hands out for this money.
Lesson One, THINK before you shoot your mouth off Flippy; lest you embarrass yourself.
But then, it’s almost impossible for a Democrat to not embarrass themselves when they talk, especially in Middletown.
Signed,
Silence Dogood, Redux
that the Dems in Monmouth are putting forth merely hopes to gloss over a statewide, both- party record,of a firm, which is now gone, over- contributing to every single county, nearly every town, authority, even school districts, no matter which side was running it.. Agree with the blogger who says they are trying to convince the low-info voters of Monmouth that only bad things ever happened here- this line of theory, with no records of positive service, and no productive ideas to help our county taxpayers, sure is a sad, cheap,and pathetic way to run a campaign – so, they will fail, yet again!
NJ’s Pay to Play laws are among the most inconsistent and silly in the country, with holes like swiss cheese.. you go to another state, they have no idea what you are talking about.. NJ’s P2P boondoggle was born of the fear of any electeds at the time,who were hell-bent on showing how “ethical”they were, as opposed to some jerks who got caught- therefore, a childish and over-reactive hodgepodge that made them and the low info’s feel better, save most of their own sorry necks, and, create tons more paperwork that more paid civil servants monitor, and that totally increased the costs of ALL public engineering contracts: the large firms hired people to keep track of every damn check, and ELEC, already overburdened with the candidates’ often lax reportage from poor treasurers.. And, ps: despite their unfortunate deciding to break the onerous laws, the workers of that now defunct firm honestly did good work, for fair prices, and in many places, COMPETED with other qualified firms to get their public business.. If everyone feels better that an originally Monmouth- grown, family company screwed up, and is now dead and gone, great.. The many local “my Pay to Play is better than your pay to play “copycat,crap ordinances”, which followed the state’s compilation, only confused firms further, and made them charge more for the trouble to keep track of it all..( Which is still going on,BTW, in the “post-Birdsall NJ”).. . the fact that some same and some newer angry, frustrated Dems in our county keep extrapolating and exaggerating others’ long- ago crimes, (for which they paid society back), is nothing short of another example of their typical hunt- and-destroy, intimidation campaign plan: what a bunch of losers! …. Ps: love it or hate it, the damn Lucas property was on the list for preservation for a long time, went through all the same steps as the others, over a long period of time, and the county’s portion was a small percentage of the contributions that 3 levels of government approved: STOP the mis-info that professes the county paid it all, and at least have some semblance of honesty and accuracy, for once, for God’s sake!