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Hoboken: City for Sale (Part III)
07
August
8/7/2009 Update:
Wheeling still prevalent
For those of you that read this article from 411 contributor estevens back in March – you remember how he shined light on the giant loophole in New Jersey’s campaign contribution laws.
NorthJersey.com has an interesting article today about how the “wheeling and dealing” continues in the Garden State, – with $19,000 being contributed to ex-Mayor Peter Cammarano’s campaign from a South Jersey “Political Committee” this year! Seems like Hoboken’s Pay-to-Play laws are easily circumvented.
3/11/2009:
[This is part of a series of article submissions by resident and 411 reader "estevens."]
Hoboken: City for Sale
Third in a series of articles about the back-room machinations of Hoboken.
Brokers and Bribes
First, if you please, a little perspective: In September of 2007, eleven New Jersey politicians were arrested as part of an FBI sting operation for accepting cash bribes in return for using their official influence to award contracts.
The 18-month investigation – Operation Broken Boards – began in mid-2006 amid evidence of corruption in the Pleasantville school district (an Abbott district near Atlantic City). Cooperating witnesses and undercover agents established two undercover companies for insurance brokerage and roofing. Five school board members accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from the fictitious businessmen in return for their assistance in steering public contracts to the two companies. Incredibly, they also referred the brokers to corrupt public officials in northern New Jersey who, in turn, referred them to yet more corrupt officials. All eleven politicians, plus a chief of staff to a Newark council president, pleaded guilty or were found guilty by trial of accepting bribes. [See list below]
There is a fine line between cash bribes and campaign contributions from those who receive public contracts. In Hoboken, campaign contributions go hand-in-hand with the awarding of insurance consulting contracts. Business & Governmental Insurance Agency (BGIA) has repeatedly received contracts with the City of Hoboken as well as the Board of Education. In return, campaign contributions from BGIA and its president, Steve Edwards, totaling more than $37,000 have been made over the past nine years to local candidates and political party committees allied with or controlled by Mayor David Roberts.
Continue with more after the jump…
(Hoboken: A city for sale, Part 3, continued…)
Insurance consultants are typically awarded professional services contracts or extraordinary unspecifiable services contracts, which ostensibly allow public officials to award contracts based on experience and reputation. In fact, this allows our officials to award contracts at will with little regard for cost. Insurance consultants are typically paid by the insurance provider and thereby may make more money for the provider – and themselves – by selecting more expensive plans for the city. While we would hope that city officials select a consultant who will get the city the best plan for the least cost, it is quite likely that those who make substantial campaign contributions may get the nod with little regard for cost to the city.
Hoboken’s Pay-to-Play Reform ordinances of 2004 and 2007 were adopted to control the influence of campaign contributions on the awarding of such contracts. Since then, our officials have mouthed adherence to the rules while quietly playing games to circumvent the rules. In 2007, BGIA had a contract with the city when it made a $2000 contribution to Hoboken Councilman Ruben Ramos, who suggests in this video that no law can stop him from taking illegal contributions. Though the contribution was made to his state assembly campaign, the city ordinance does not allow for any contributions from a business entity with professional/extraordinary contracts to any officeholder involved in the awarding of contracts to that business entity. Per the penalty clause of the city ordinance, BGIA is apparently ineligible for city contracts for four years, though it did continue to provide services for the Hoboken BOE the following year.
Wheeling and dealing
Enter Federal Hill Risk Management (formerly Gartland Associates), an insurance brokerage firm out of Maryland. On May 25, 2007 during the spring election season, Federal Hill, Dynamic Claims Management (a sister company), Gartland & Company, Diana Gartland, and Victor Bramble (a manager with Federal Hill), all made $300 contributions to Ruben Ramos’ assembly campaign. The contributions met the $300 limit set by Hoboken’s pay-to-play laws for the one-year period prior to awarding of a contract, though such bundling could potentially violate the terms of the ordinance and certainly violate the spirit of the law.
On the same date, a little-known political committee called Committee for Efficiency in Government, run out of an apartment at 108 Monroe Street, made a $5000 contribution to Ruben Ramos as well. A week later, Gartland & Co, E-Administrative Systems (same address as Gartland), Dynamic Claims Management, and Victor Bramble made a total of $5000 in contributions to Committee for Efficiency. This was apparently what is referred to as “wheeling” – a pass-through of money to circumvent Hoboken’s pay-to-play law – or was perhaps just another remarkable Hoboken coincidence.
On September 4, 2007, Derek Johnson – a manager with Federal Hill – contributed $2000 to Voice for All Hoboken, a political committee managed by City Councilman and Mayoral candidate Peter Cammarano, which made contributions to and spent money in 2007 on behalf of candidates Chris Campos, Michael Russo, Theresa Castellano, Nino Giacchi, and Richard Tremitiedi. Evidently, someone in the campaign thought better of it and returned the $2000 ten days later. On September 24, Committee for Efficiency made a $2000 contribution to Voice and then received $3000 from Derek Johnson four days later. On December 7, Federal Hill was awarded the contract to serve as insurance consultant for the City of Hoboken. Yet another remarkable Hoboken coincidence?
Getting back to where we started, politicians around the state have gone to jail for accepting cash bribes in return for their official influence in awarding insurance brokerage contracts. In Hoboken, thousands of dollars in “gratuities” are considered business as usual so long as they are deposited in political campaign accounts. Our local politicians will wrap themselves in the American flag and opine about the First Amendment and free speech, but any reasonable person can understand what is behind these machinations.
Other politicians get busted for bribes
March 11th 2009 - 12:53:51 |
Great job on this EStevens!!!
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March 11th 2009 - 13:20:06 |
i just finished reading a book called “tiger in the court” – which was written by a federal prosecutor who convicted 100’s of public officials in the late 60’s and early 70’s – mostly from essex and ESPECIALLY hudson county. sad to say, but this is par for the course around here. new medium like the internet will finally rile the people up enough to put an end to it imo. this little fiefdom is LONG overdue, but it will fall. the state monitor is step one, the feds will be step two.
since 2001, 200 New Jersey public officials have been busted for corruption – 200! in 8 years! and those are the ones they caught! data found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15334483
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March 11th 2009 - 13:25:19 |
Who is this Estevens? You come to my town and start spreading rumors about our esteemed councilperson, assemblyman and teacher Ruben Ramos. This man works three jobs at once. How many of you out there can do that??
You get these silly campaign laws passed and Ruben finds a way to comply with them, while at the same time making sure all his many friends are happy and can support his campaign financially, and you still get upset.
Ruben Ramos can’t help it he’s so popular that even people as far away as Maryland want to support him and his stance on the issues.
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March 11th 2009 - 13:51:46 |
ROFL . . .nice job Bri.
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March 11th 2009 - 13:56:40 |
Did you ever take one look at someone and conclude they are not very bright? Happens to me every time I look at Ramos.
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March 11th 2009 - 14:14:20 |
gazzosdriver wrote:
You mean his “drrrrrrr” look he always has since he really doesn’t gibe a dam about Hoboken, it is just his double dipper job which has now become a hassle/
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March 11th 2009 - 14:17:32 |
He bobs his head a lot, he is a human bobblehead. People from Maryland must really like bobbleheads…and his hard stance on the issues.
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March 11th 2009 - 14:30:10 |
Stupid question. I give money to an unknown candidate because they are promoting open space. But not just any open space. Open Space in my neighborhood. Real close to my property, which would tremendously enhance it’s value.
Now is it Ok to make that donation, even though I will directly benefit financially. Am I not directly paying someone in the hopes of retrieving a greater gain, hence “Pay to Play”? But I guess we will just call it a contribution.
You can’t have it both ways. We can either ban all contributions to any Politicians, which will leave us with a Monarchy form of Government. In which we are the peasants being Governed by the rich who can afford to completely self finance. Or we can deal with the system that we have been using since the founding of our Country.
I agree that it’s not perfect. This is why we have Laws against inappropriate behavior while one is in office. I encourage people to contribute to Beth Mason, Peter Cammarano, Dawn Zimmer or any other candidates that they choose. I also expect that these candidates will take contributions from professional firms, No different than Hillary, McCain, or Obama.
No matter who wins, someone will always question the firms that they choose to hire. Thats just the way it is. What will not be tolerated, is if you pick one based on a personal financial gain. For that, you will pay the price and may lose your freedom along with it.
Just imagine if we were a Communist Country. We would not have any of these issues, nor our freedom to select whoever we want, for whatever reason we want. Food for thought.
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March 11th 2009 - 14:33:23 |
Good article. For some reason I can’t link through to parts on and two. Hopefully it will shed some light on the class warfare that goes on in this town. Like I keep attempting to say to those who hate the new comers. The new comers aren’t the people who have sold you out, it’s the people who have been saying they are on your side and that they are your friend. they sold you out for a few bucks and to developers who ran over your town and gave they away your tax dollars. There never would have been so many yuppies around to hate if your friends hadn’t sold you out to the developers.
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March 11th 2009 - 15:01:28 |
Notnow are you serious? You actually don’t see the difference between giving a campaign contribution to someone because you agree with them on the issues, and giving them a contribution as an “incentive” to hiring your firm? Please tell me your last post was a joke!
I benefit from lower taxes, so I donate to candidates who I believe will lower my taxes. That is how democracy works.
I want a government contract so I donate to a candidate who will give me the contract in exchange for my donation. That is how corruption works.
Even if you’re sufficiently ethically challenged that you can’t understand the difference, presumably you understand that a law is a law, whether you agree with it or not. Pay to play laws are the law, the people who violate them are commiting illegal acts, and they should be held accountable.
We pay $25,000 per year for a family health insurance policy. If you strip out vision and dental, you reduce the cost to about $22,000 per year. My company – with fewer than 10 employees – pays about $15,000 for a comparable plan. A big company like Citibank would pay about 1/2 that.
Do you really think there’s nothing fishy going on here and those consultants deserve their contracts?
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March 11th 2009 - 15:45:48 |
I would guess that the difference between the cases presented here is that those arrested got the money for themselves, but the other person gets contributions for a political campaign. In one case, one is a bribe because the person pockets the money, in the other case, it is kind of unethical, but the system seems unethical to begin with.
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March 11th 2009 - 16:49:30 |
Katie_Scarlett wrote:
You mean nice job Ruben.
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March 11th 2009 - 21:18:19 |
aap wrote:
Someone correct me if I am wrong but, I don’t think politicians necessarily have to spend their political contributions. They can take the money with them if they decide to not run again. If you can keep the money it is basically the same as handing over an envelope filled with 100s.
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March 11th 2009 - 22:22:52 |
Beejay – no they can’t, though they often use funds for “strategy sessions” at Frankie & Johnnie’s, donations to local charities and clubs (rather than using their own bucks), and as Anthony Russo did, hiring their wife to be “campaign manager” at $1000 a week.
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July 24th 2009 - 00:31:11 |
Doing the I-told-you-so bump (and grind).
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August 7th 2009 - 15:47:05 |
It’s really sad that all this money is needed to run for public office. Instead of citizens coming out and tracking down the candidates, campaigns need to spend dollars upon dollars to reach apathetic americans.
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August 7th 2009 - 15:47:49 |
In fact – its not only the politicians that are for sale, its the entire public that is for sale.
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August 7th 2009 - 16:22:25 |
this is why it pays for politicians to read hoboken411. He would have educated himself about what to look out for!
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August 7th 2009 - 17:19:52 |
Great article. The problem with very constrictive pay-to-play laws is that it costs money to run a campaign and the people who really benefit is the ultra rich candidate like Mason, Corzine or Bloomberg.
It definitely rids us of bad contracts, but it also rids us of good people who cannot afford the cost a campaign on their own.
We should make sure we’re pushing strict pay-to-play laws, to avoid the situations mentioned above, but we also need to focus on fair elections.
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August 11th 2009 - 12:24:02 |
I just read an article that pertains to this very subject on a national level. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court might overturn a law banning corporate camapign contributions, and it offers an interesting historical persepctive. Insurance co’s have been involved in campaign controversey for 100 years.
Here’s the link
nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11tue4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
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