Desperate Doherty’s wife denies Ashbritt connection, again

Maggie Moran and Matt Doherty at Governor Corzine’s 2006 inauguration.

Maggie Moran, Democrat freeholder candidate Matt Doherty’s wife and former Governor Corzine’s Deputy Chief of Staff and campaign manager, wants the Monmouth GOP to stop telling Monmouth County voters that she and Matthew profited from the suffering of Jersey Shore residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Moran’s lawyer, Angelo Genova of the Newark law firm Genova Burns, LLC, sent a Cease and Desist Letter to the Monmouth County Republican Committee yesterday claiming that a mailer and TV commercial the GOP shared with Monmouth County voters this week is factually inaccurate and defames Moran.  Genova also sent the letter to the Common Sense for Belmar blog, who published the mailer.

Genova must think that Shaun Golden, Chairman and Tom Szymanski, Executive Director of the Monmouth GOP, as well as Dave Schneck, publisher of Common Sense for Belmar, don’t read MoreMonmouthMusings. 

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Maggie Moran denies working for AshBritt post-Sandy

Maggie Moran

Maggie Moran, the only Democrat political consultant/campaign manager to lose a statewide race in New Jersey in the last twenty years and the wife of Monmouth County freeholder candidate, Belmar Mayor “Lawless Matt” Doherty, denies that she did work for AshBritt Inc. during the aftermath in Superstorm Sandy, as has been reported by MoreMonmouthMusings and many other publications.

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It would be great if The Star Ledger…

….put Cory Booker under a microscope like they have Governor Chris Christie and Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Hermann.

By Art Gallagher, [email protected]

photo via facebook

Star Ledger sports columnist Steve Politi has a column this morning that is part of his ongoing campaign to take down Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Hermann; Julie Hermann: It would be ‘great’ if The Star Ledger went out of business.

Politi has been trying to get Hermann fired since Rutgers hired her to turn around their Athletic Department last spring.  Something about alleged bullying and sex discrimination at a previous job and lying about whether or not she talked to the parent of a Rutgers student who alleged he had been bullied.

Turns out that Hermann doesn’t like The Star Ledger. Several weeks ago she told a journalism class that, “That’d be great [if the Star Ledger died]. I’m going to do all I can to not to give them a headline to keep them alive because I think I got them through the summer,” according to a Rutgers student alternative news site, Muckgers. (Note that Hermann didn’t actually say the words ‘if the Star Ledger died.’ She was responding to a student’s question that was not quoted.)  The Muckgers reporter broke the “news” of Hermann’s several weeks old remarks to a journalism class last Thursday, the same day The Star Ledger told 167 employees they would be out or work in September with severance pay.

As part of his pity party for his 167 colleagues, Politi wrote a column with a headline that implies Hermann threw a celebratory party to celebrate the coming hardship on those reporters, advertising execs, copy editors and clerks who don’t find work before their severance and unemployment benefits run out.

Forget, for a minute, what you think about the newspaper. It doesn’t matter if you think its Rutgers’ coverage stinks, or its news coverage is biased, or if its columnists are too smug for their own good.

What matters is this: The Star-Ledger employs a lot of people. And if the Rutgers athletic director thinks it would be great if it closed down, then she relishes the idea of seeing those people lose their livelihood, their benefits and maybe more.

I don’t know Hermann. Never talked to her.  But I’d bet that she doesn’t “relish the idea of seeing those people lose their livelihood, their benefits and maybe more.”  She probably just feels that way about Politi, who has been trying to see her lose her livelihood, benefits and more.

I don’t begrudge Politi taking his shots at Hermann.  I have no idea if his coverage of her career is accurate or not. I respect the fact that his bias against her is obvious.

But I think that The Star Ledger spending so much on an Athletic Director while giving a U.S. Senator a pass is disgraceful.

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Christie broke no rules in awarding no-bid Sandy contract, audit finds

Christie broke no rules in awarding no-bid Sandy contract, audit finds (via NJ.com)

TRENTON — A federal audit released today concludes that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration did not violate any rules in awarding a no-bid contract to a politically connected company to haul away debris left by Hurricane Sandy. But the audit by the…

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AshBritt CEO Deflates Buono’s Hopes Of Making Clean Up A Campaign Issue

Trenton Democrats’ continuing quest to turn Governor Christie’s strongest issue against him suffered a set back yesterday when AshBritt CEO Randall Perkins won over Democratic members of a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee and flummoxed presumed gubernatorial nominee Barbara Buono by calling her on the political motivation of her questioning.

Facing four hours of questioning by the bi-partisan committee chaired by Senator Bob Gordon (D-Bergen), Perkins frequently praised the legislators for exercising their oversight duties, while combatively swatting back Democratic allegations of impropriety disguised as questions.

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Belmar Councilman Takes Issue With Doherty’s Veracity On AshBrit Contract

Doherty says he maintained the highest ethical standards.  Charges Councilman Jim Bean with his own conflict

UPDATED

Belmar Councilman Jim Bean, a Republican, says that Mayor Matt Doherty, a Democrat, “kind of lied” when he told MMM that he recused himself from voting on the borough’s contract with AshBrit, the Florida company that was hired by the Christie administration for Superstorm Sandy cleanup.

We asked Doherty if he had recused himself from voting on the borough’s business with AshBrit because we had documentation that his wife, Maggie Moran, was acting as a sales agent for the company in its efforts to secure lucrative business in cleaning up municipalities impacted by Sandy.  He said he did.  But that was not the whole story, according to Bean, who said that the borough council’s vote to authorize payments to AshBrit occurred two weeks after Doherty signed the contract.

Bean sent along an email exchange between him and Doherty to back up his complaint:

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Christie Administration Addresses AshBrit Contract

The Christie Administration released the following statement regarding AshBrit’s contract with the State for the cleanup from Superstorm Sandy:

Taking  Emergency and Long-Term Action To Assist Debris Removal

Competitively  Bid Emergency Contract With AshBritt Allowed New Jersey Towns To Take  Immediate Action In Addressing Debris Removal In An Efficient And Responsible  Manner

________________________________________________

AshBritt  Had Extensive Experience And Unique Capabilities To Respond To Major  Disasters:

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Democratic Legislators Set To Investigate AshBrit’s Alleged Gouging

By Art Gallagher

Assemblyman Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson), Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, and Senate President Steve Sweeney told The Star Ledger that they are going to investigate the lucrative no-bid state contract that AshBrit received from the Christie Administration for Superstorm Sandy clean up and the well connected lobbyists the company used to sell their premium priced services to municipal officials from Sandy ravaged communities.

“We already had questions about how Sandy relief money was being spent, and these findings raise those questions to a new level,” Prieto told The Star-Ledger. “This money is supposed to be spent properly to benefit New Jersey residents and communities devastated by Sandy, not become a feeding frenzy for lobbyists and an excuse to bypass regulations on business, the environment and pay-to-play.”

As a conservative, it warms my heart to see Democrats fighting wasteful spending. Maybe Trenton really has been turned upside down.

As a skeptic, I expect that whatever hearings the Democrats hold will be done with the intention of denting Governor Christie’s substantial Sandy related armor going into the November election.

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Gilmore’s Cleaning Up

Ocean County GOP Chairman Geroge Gilmore is among a handful of connected lobbyists hired by AshBrit, the Florida company that won the sole state contract for Superstorm Sandy clean up, who was making sales calls to municipal officials looking for lucrative non-bid clean up work after then storm, according to an article in The Star Ledger this morning.

MMM was the first to report that former Corzine staffer Maggie Moran and her firm, M Public Affairs, was selling AshBrit’s premium priced services to Sandy ravaged municipalities.  The Ledger report expands the list of lobbyists working for AshBrit in New Jersey to Gilmore, former Corzine cabinet member Kris Kullari, and former Assembly Republican director Jon Bombardieri.

AshBrit has been widely praised for the quality of the clean up work it hired subcontractors to perform.  Their no-bid pricing is the issue.  AshBrit charged $100 per ton for debris removal. Towns that didn’t hire AshBrit got the work done for $26 per ton.

“If this isn’t a classic example of how everything is connected in New Jersey politics, I don’t know what is,” said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), who was Corzine’s running mate in 2009 when Moran managed his re-election campaign.

MMM is generally not a fan of Weinberg, but we are with her on this issue. Excess profits paid to AshBrit for making phone calls and signing contracts could have been used to rebuild infrastructure, house the displaced, etc, or not borrowed from China in the first place.

Gilmore got another new job last month. Just as MMM predicted last June during the Monmouth GOP Chairman’s race, Gilmore’s firm was appointed Assistant Monmouth County Counsel by the Board of Freeholders during their reorganization meeting.

Despite his threats to due so, John Bennett has not sued MMM for making that prediction.

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Were taxpayers gouged on Sandy cleanup?

In the immediate aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Governor Chris Christie and Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa warned New Jersey businesses, gas stations, hardware stores, food stores, hotels and other retailers who had electricity and were able to sell life sustaining products and services to a vulnerable public against price gouging.  By the end of November, one month after Sandy hit, Chiesa’s office was investigating thousands of gouging complaints and had filed at least 10 civil rights lawsuits against hotels and gas stations.

In the November 28 release announcing the lawsuits, Christie said,

“The  last thing people put out of their homes in a natural disaster should have to  confront is price gouging from unscrupulous profiteers,” said Governor  Christie. “It’s illegal, offensive and completely opposite the spirit of  cooperation we saw just about everywhere else in our state in the aftermath of  Hurricane Sandy. I encourage more of the same treatment from the Attorney  General for any other instances of price gouging he discovers.”

A Star Ledger article posted Tuesday morning raises questions as to whether the State and 43 municipalities were gouged by the Florida contractor, AshBrit Environmental, that was awarded a $100 million no-bid contract to clean up state roads and waterways and allowing municipalities to hire the firm without going out to bid.

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