Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 06:48:30 PM EDT
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| We've written about the Burlington County Bridge commission before here at Blue Jersey. When we last left them, lobbyist Bob Stears was pleading guilty saying he got sucked into a "corrupt group of people."
The Philadelphia Inquirer had an in depth piece yesterday on the agency talking about how despite the notion they want people to believe that they are a model that has learned from past mistakes under the new leadership of John Comegno, they are still a prime source of business for many of the GOP donors and the game continues: The commission and its staff have a number of Republican ties. Comegno's law firm, the Comegno Law Group, is a GOP donor. The executive director is the son of a Republican political action committee treasurer. And the new chief financial officer is a former GOP councilwoman from Riverton. Comegno is the current chairman of the bridge commission and despite all of these ties to the county party, he described "the commission as a model of transparency and accountability, saying political relationships and donations are not related to agency operations in any way." This "model of transparency" still has deep ties to the county party:The law firm Capehart Scatchard, an influential backer of the Burlington County Republican Party, has received $2.2 million in legal fees since 2007. That's the equivalent of billing 13 hours a workday over the last three years. Capehart Scatchard is GOP party boss Glenn Paulsen's law firm where he is a partner. His neighbor is Bill Layton, the current chairman of the Republican party Burlington County. Follow me below the fold for more. |
| Jason Springer :: Not quite the model that learned from past problems |
In addition to the legal fees they receive, Capehart Scatchard got nearly a million more as counsel for bonding of the commission. And it's not just how much they are being paid, but the process by which they're getting it:When the demonstration ended, the commission recessed its meeting for lunch, then met in a private, executive session. The commissioners emerged, and publicly voted to increase the ceiling on Capehart Scatchard's legal contract from $300,000 to $800,000, in part to cover work Capehart Scatchard had already billed but for which it had not yet been paid.
The item had never made it onto the meeting agenda. Commission solicitor Carmen Saginario, a partner at Capehart Scatchard, explained that it had been discussed in executive session because it concerned litigation, and was not done "with any intent not to be open." That's some of the new transparency for you. A $500,000 item never made it on the agenda, was decided on in executive session in private, but they weren't trying to not be open of course. This is the type of situation that has led the new Governor to wield his veto pen. But Paulsen wasn't the only contributor that has done well from Republican control:Seven of the 10 professional-services firms that receive the most money from the commission have donated more than $600,000 to Republicans in Burlington County during the last three years. Of that amount, $250,000 came from the commission's engineering firm, Pennoni Associates. In return for Pennoni's contributions, which made them the largest donor to the county GOP, the story says they received more than $9.9 million from the agency for work. Not a bad investment they made to get that return. The executive director of the commission when the corruption occurred was George Nykita, who retired with a huge payout and is now working for Pennoni.
The Democrats had made waves going after these connections hitting on the Paulsen's 20 in past years, but the resignation of the former party chair and treasurer seemingly cut the legs out from under the traction the argument was getting. If you read the whole story, you'll see that no matter who is making the arguments, the Republicans have a well oiled machine alive and well at the Burlington County Bridge Commission deserving of much further scrutiny. |
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