Speaking Frankly

By Frank Hannan

Follow the money, from the county to local Democrats

Some of you may be wondering what prompted Democrat Councilman Robert Nolan’s column, “ Follow the money…” last week. Mr. Nolan now wants to revise our local pay to play ordinance. Back in February, in Democrat Council Candidate’s James Warden column called “ ‘ The little birdie told me’” we heard it was the Republicans that were looking to repeal or amend the pay to play ordinance that was “spearheaded by Councilman Nolan.”

According to Mr. Warden, “ Indeed, there are dozens of firms and individuals throughout Bergen and Passaic County that contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for millions of dollars in municipal and county contracts. The county political parties use those contributions to fund their political war chests, and subsequently reward their contributors with lucrative contracts at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Warden is right and one way they steer contributions and conceal them from the general public is to “ wheel” money through affiliated political action committees, PACs, to local campaigns. It seems that he and his West Milford Democrats 2007 campaign accepted “wheeled” county money last year.

At the April 17th West Milford Township Special Council meeting, on the agenda was the review of Requests for Proposals (RFP’s) for our now vacant town auditor position. A few weeks back Mayor Battina Bieri voted against her own compromise to amend our pay to play ordinance that would allow us to retain our long time West Milford resident and second generation auditor. So, the position is now vacant.

At the meeting, Nolan pushed for the Newark firm, Samuel Klein & Company. It was the firm that according to him “ impressed me the most”. According to Nolan and the RFP their client list included the towns of Newark, Bloomingdale, Montclair and others.

After that meeting, Republican Council President Joe Smolinski decided to dig a little deeper into Samuel Klein & Company and what he found should have made front line headlines. Like the three-leg races of my youth, Samuel Klein & Company is tied at the hip to the Passaic County Democrat Party.

At the April 23 regular council meeting, When the mayor asked for comments on the RFP’s for the auditor’s position, Mr. Nolan repeated his enthusiastic support for the Samuel Klein & Company. At that point Council President Smolinski revealed that the company had donated money ($3000.00) to a political action committee called, Hope NJ PAC and that PAC had donated ($1000.00) to the West Milford Democrats 2007 campaign that elected the mayor and Nolan. The treasurer for that campaign was Councilman Robert E. Nolan.

Election law requires that the address of major contributors be included in election reports. The West Milford Democrats 2007 report of 11/24/07, which is public record, included the Hope NJ PAC donation but no address. The report was filled out and signed by candidate and Treasurer Robert E. Nolan. (He had to sign in two places). Mr. Warden and the mayor also signed it

The Hope NJ PAC appears to be a political action committee set up by the Passaic County Democrat Party to wheel money to campaigns like West Milford Democrats 2007. In 2006 the PAC received over $122,000 in “contributions”.

The mayor and Nolan acted surprised to hear that the county might have wheeled money, part of which came from Klein, to their campaign. The public should be concerned that they are willing to take campaign contributions from a PAC (without even knowing their address) with no questions asked in order to win an election. This proves that they are politicians and not as self- advertised, “non- partisan”.

As for the Samuel Klein & Company, one of the clients that Mr. Nolan failed to mention was the Passaic County Improvement Authority. Remember the Passaic County Golf Course sale fiasco? The freeholders wanted to sell the course to generate much needed cash to keep the job patronage mill going. The scheme was to sell the course to the PCIA and have them float bonds to pay for it backed by you, the taxpayer. A New Jersey appellate court ruled that shell game illegal.

If it were not for Republican Council President Smolinski our local pay to play law may have been inadvertently violated. Who knows what other firms doing business with the township are in violation? Obviously, since we rely on the firms to certify compliance, our local ordinance is unenforceable.

In my opinion, we need tough pay to play laws from the state of New Jersey. We now see our local ordinance is not worth the paper it is written on and revising it will waste the town attorney’s time = your tax dollars, and not solve the problem. Eliminating it statewide is the only way to get rid of pay to play.

Yea, Samuel Klein & Company is tied to the hip to the state, county and local Democrat Party. Just imagine what will happen if West Milford Democrats 2008 running again as part of the county team using Democrat “wheeled” money win a majority locally this fall. Let’s hope that the voters “just say no” to a county takeover of our town on November 4th.

Reprinted With Permission (c)Aim West Milford