Belmar Councilman Jim Bean Lodges Ethics Complaint Against Mayor Matt Doherty Over AshBritt Contracts

Bean cites Local Finance Board’s Decision Against Marlboro Councilwoman Randi Marder To Support His Complaint

Doherty Dismisses Complaint As Politics

Belmar Councilman Jim Bean. Photo credit: Belmar.com

Belmar Councilman Jim Bean, a Republican, has written to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ Local Finance Board requesting an investigation into a “potential violation” of New Jersey’s Local Government Ethics Law by Mayor Matt Doherty, a Democrat.

Doherty’s wife, Maggie Moran, a former Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Jon Corzine, worked as a consultant for AshBritt, the Florida company that performed debris removal throughout much of New Jersey after the Superstorm Sandy.  Belmar paid $2.67 million to AshBrit and its affiliates, according to Bean’s complaint which can be found here.

Doherty said that Bean is “Belmar’s Bayshore Tea Party….a cancer on the Republican Party.”

“This is the second, politically motivated, baseless complaint Bean has filed against me in the past 8 months, ” Doherty said, “If he didn’t waste his time on this nonsense maybe he could actually do something useful for the people of Belmar.”

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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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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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Corzine Economics: The $750 million Bond Question

Do you approve the “Building Our Future Bond Act?” This bond act authorizes the state to issue bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $750 million to provide matching grants to New Jeresy’s colleges and universities. Money from the grants will be used to build, equip and expand higher education facilities for the purpose of increasing academic capacity.

We thought we were rid of him in 2009.  We sent him back to Wall Street where he destroyed the company that hired him as CEO and he destroyed the businesses and savings of thousands of investors when $1.2 billion of their money went missing.   He testified before a congressional committee that he simply does not know where the money is.  MF’ing Jon Corzine.

Yet the ghost of Jon Corzine in on the ballot twice this November.  Once, if Joe Kyrillos has his way, in the form of Bob Menendez, the man Corzine made a Senator.

Perhaps more dangerous to our fiscal health than Bob Menendez is the insidious alliance of trough swillers who are hoping New Jersey voters don’t notice that ballot question #1 is Corzine Economics and Governance.

Imagine this is a personal expenditure.  It is.  If not for you, for your children or grandchildren.

Imagine your income has been down for a few years and its lower that what you expected it would be so far this year.  Your credit rating has been downgraded.  Your savings have been depleted and you don’t know that you’re going to be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.  Not that hard to imagine.  Many New Jerseyans are living through that nightmare.  Our state government is going through exactly that.

Then imagine that a group of politicians, unions, business groups, colleges, gas and electric companies, water companies, insurance companies…pretty much everyone who supported Corzine’s plan to sell or lease our highways and his plan to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research comes along and asks you to guarantee a $750 million loan to build, equip and expand facilities on college campuses.

Again, not hard to imagine because its happening.  The group is called Building our Future: Yes on #1.  Its list of donors smells like #2 if you’re concerned our New Jersey’s fiscal health and your own.

As of October 10 the group’s donors had kicked in $900,000 to persuade you to vote for their largess, according to The Star Ledger.

Most of Building our Future’s donors have a financial stake in the passage of referendum, which could create dozens of large construction projects on college campuses across the state.

The group’s first donors include: PSE&G ($200,000), New Jersey Carpenter Contractor Network ($100,000), New Jersey Resources ($100,000), Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters PAC ($100,000), New Jersey State Electrical Workers ($100,000) and the American Federal of Teachers New Jersey ($10,000).

William Paterson University was the first higher education institution to donate to the cause, with a $33,000 check, according to the ELEC filing. University officials said the money came from private donations to the William Paterson Foundation, the school’s nonprofit fund raising arm.

This group knows how to raise money. $900,000 since they were formed in August.  They also know how to spend it.  Save money?  Not so much.  Their web site cost over $18,000.

The Corzine connections to the group run deep.

Maggie Moran was the first chairperson of the group, according to their ELEC reports.  Moran was Corzine’s Chief of Staff when he served in the U.S. Senate. She was his Deputy Chief of Staff while he was governor. Laura Matos was the group’s first treasurer. Matos served in the governor’s office for Jim McGreevey, Dick Cody and Corzine.  Moran and Matos are now partners at M Public Affairs, Inc.  Building our Future: Yes on #1 shares office space with M Public Affairs in Lake Como.  Building our Future: Yes on #1 and M Public Affairs have the same phone number.  Of the $188,000 Building our Future: Yes on #1 spent through October 9, $55,000, including the $18K web site, was paid to M Public Affairs.

The new chairman of Building our Future is union leader William T. Mullen.  The new treasurer is John Duthie who is also the treasurer of the NJ State Laborers PAC and the Laborer’s International Union of North America.

The Corzine connections run deep.

We couldn’t afford Jon Corzine when he was governor and we can’t afford his borrow and overspend policies now.

Vote No on #1.

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2012 Predictions

Serena DiMaso will be elected Monmouth County Freeholder at the Title 19 convention of the Monmouth GOP Committee on January 14.   Bob Walsh will withdraw during his speech before the convention.

Bill Spadea defeats Donna Simon and John Saccenti at a Title 19 convention of the 16th legislative district to fill the assembly seat vacated by the death of Peter Biondi.  After recounts and law suits, the November special election for the seat is declared a tie between Spadea and Democratic Princeton Committeewoman Sue Nemeth.  Another special election is scheduled for January of 2013.

Joe Oxley will be named Township Administrator and In House Attorney for Wall Township.  The appointment will forward a statewide trend of municipalities hiring either attorneys or engineers as their administrators as a cost saving measure.   Oxley is reelected GOP County Chairman by acclamation.  Senator Jennifer Beck will give the nominating speech.  Christine Hanlon will be Vice Chair.

Middletown will get a new Parks and Recreation Director.  It won’t be Linda Baum or Pam Brightbill.

Jim McGreevey is ordained an Episcopal priest.

Jon Corzine remembers where he put the $1.2 billion.

Senator Joe Kyrillos will be the GOP nominee for U.S. Senator, defeating Anna Little and Joseph Rudy Rullo in the primary. 

Congressman Steve Rothman defeats Congressman Bill Pascrell in the Democratic primary for the 9th Congressional District nomination.  In the only surprise of the primary, former Bergen County GOP Freeholder Anthony Cassano, who had agreed to take one for the team in the 9th, was defeated when the Bergen County Tea Party Group organized a write-in campaign for Anna Little.  Little was on the ballot as a U.S. Senate candidate.  Having lost the Senate nomination to Joe Kyrillos, Little accepts the nomination, asks Kyrillos to host a fundraiser for her, and promises to move into the district if she wins.   She doesn’t.

Maggie Moran defeats Vin Gopal and Frank “LaHornica” LaRocca in a close election for the Monmouth County Democratic Chairmanship.

James Hogan of Long Branch is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District.  Frank Pallone is reelected by 8%.

Jordan Rickards of North Brunswick  is the GOP nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.  Rush Holt is reelected by 15%.

On August 28, the second day of the Republican National Convention, the National Weather Service warns that Hurricane Chris is heading towards the Jersey Shore.  Acting Governor Kim Guadagno gets on TV and says, “Get the heck off of the beach please.”

Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for President of the United States.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be the Vice Presidential nominee.

President Obama nominates Vice President Joe Biden to be Secretary of State.  Biden submits his resignation as VP effective upon both houses of congress confirming his successor.  President Obama nominates Hillary Clinton as Vice President.   Speaker of the House John Boehner refuses to schedule confirmation hearings for the VP nomination on the constitutional grounds that their is no vacancy in the office.   Obama makes them both recess appointments.  Clinton is nominated for VP at the Democratic National Convention and Secretary of State Biden spends October in China.

Despite losing their home states of Massachusetts and New Jersey, the Romney-Christie ticket wins the electoral college by one vote, 270-269.   The winning vote comes from Maine, one of two states that awards electoral votes by congressional district.  Romney-Christie lose Maine 3-1 but win the election.  Obama-Clinton file suit to challenge Maine’s method of awarding electoral votes.  Romney-Christie counter with a suit in Nebraska, which they won 4 electoral votes to 1, using the same arguments that Obama-Clinton use in Maine.  The U.S. Supreme Court decides both cases for the plaintiffs, 5-4, and determined that in all future presidential elections that electoral votes are awarded on a winner take all basis nationally.  Tea Party leader Dwight Kehoe calls for the impeachment of the Justices who voted affirmatively, claiming that they don’t understand the 10th Amendment.

Robert Menendez defeats Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate by 1%.

U. S. Senator Frank Lautenberg resigns.   In one of his last acts as Governor before ascending to the Vice Presidency, Chris Christie appoints Kyrillos to Lautenberg’s Senate seat.

What do you think will happen?

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Pallone Wins Lottery, Loses Moran and Influence On The Redistricting Commission

By Art Gallagher

Frank Pallone split a $75,000 lottery jackpot three ways and still ended up with more money than Anna Little has raised in her quest to unseat him. 

 The Wall Street Journal says that Pallone pocketed just under $25K after splitting the prize with his father and brother.  Little raised no money and spent $5K on her campaign according to her most recent FEC reports.

However, Pallone’s winnings and war chest can’t buy him love from the New Jersey Redistricting Commission now that his ally Maggie Moran has been booted off the commission, just as NJ.com’s Auditor predicted.

The Democrats on the Redistricting Commission are former Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, former Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez, former Assemblyman Michael Baker of East Brunswick, former Pascrell Chief of Staff Ed Farmer, former Corzine deputy chief-of-staff Jeannine LaRue of Trenton, and Essex County Democratic Committee Chairman Phil Thigpen.

The Republicans are political strategist Mike DuHaime, former Burlington County Freeholder Director Aubrey Fenton, Morris County attorney Eric Jaso, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, Cape May Freeholder Susan Sheppard and National Federation of Republican Woman President Sherine El-Abd.

Not a Pallone loyalist on the list.   As the senior Democrat in the NJ congressional delegation, Pallone’s seat should be safe from redistricting.  However the commission is heavy with members loyal to Democratic power broker Donald Norcross and Republican Governor Chris Christie, neither of whom are fans of Pallone.

By the population numbers, the northeast part of the state should lose a congressional district when the new map is adopted.   But Donald Payne’s 10th and Albio Sires’ 13th are minority majority districts that have to be protected.   Combining Bill Pascrell’s 8th district with Steve Rothman’s 9th would make sense on paper, but the Democrats will never agree to surrender a seat without an election.

After both sides propose maps that guarantee the other side loses a seat, the commission will likely settle on a map that pits one incumbent from each party against each other.

MMM would love to see the southeast portion of Pallone’s district combined with Congressman Chris Smith’s district.  Smith would crush Pallone.  Phoney Palloney would probably retire from the House and run for governor rather than face Smith head to head.

The other reason we would love to see such a district is because it would likely mean that the Northern Monmouth portion of CD 6 would be folded into Rush Holt’s CD 12, setting up a four way race for the GOP nomination to unseat Holt between Strong New Jersey Chairwoman Diane Gooch, Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre (the only mayor in the universe to lower property taxes four years in a row), Little, and Lincoln Club of NJ President Scott Sipprelle.   That would be a great race for web traffic and advertising revenue!

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