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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