Mayor Michael Wildes has stocked Englewood's Planning Board with campaign contributors and personal friends who have, in turn, voted for projects presented by other friends and donors.
Wildes, a Planning Board member himself, also has voted to approve some of those projects.
At the same time, board members, applicants, their employees and family members have donated a combined $50,775 to Wildes since he took office four years ago.
There's no connection between contributions and appointments, the mayor said in an interview. News flash: The mayor appoints people he respects who bring professionalism to the board, and an angle that was not there before. Every mayor across the state does it.
Newsflash: I wasn't born yesterday - and if I had been born yesterday; then I didn't live all day for nothing. It would seem that the Mayor - to use his words - only "respects" people after they give him money.
Six people who donated $21,225 to the mayor were appointed to the Planning Board following their initial contributions. Two are lawyers who have received business referrals from Wildes, who is also an attorney. A third is a close family friend who vacations with and was endorsed by the mayor for a council run.
Those appointees have voted as a bloc to approve projects by other Wildes donors and friends almost without exception. The mayor has recused himself on donors' plans at least nine times.
Three times, Wildes voted to approve a project presented by a donor who contributed before or after the approval. Two of those times, he voted for plans represented by attorney Nicholas Sekas, a donor who rents Manhattan office space from the mayor and is a "very close personal friend," Wildes said.
Sekas and another lawyer, Nicholas Doria, their family members and staff have donated a combined $17,900 to the mayor's campaigns. Doria is Wildes' campaign treasurer and has also received a business referral from Wildes, the mayor said.
Each of the nine applications over the past four years where Doria or Sekas was identified as the attorney were approved. The proposals sought everything from setback variances to an office building.
Doria, by the way, doesn't even live in Englewood. I'm sure, however, that there is no one living in the city that could serve on the Planning Board.
Over the past four years, some plans would have been approved no matter how Wildes' appointees voted - 90 percent of all applications are approved, according to the Building Department. Sometimes these approvals require developers to add architectural features, signs or additional parking spaces.
But Wildes' appointees helped approve almost all of the plans presented by his donors - from business signs to office buildings in the city's revitalized downtown.
It's gotten so cozy that, on Jan. 29, a contributor seeking approval for a business sign was represented by Doria. And the 6-2 decision included affirmative votes by five Wildes campaign donors.
You can't get much more conflicted about your interest than to have an attorney on the Planning Board representing your case before the Planning Board right before the Planning Board votes on the case presented by a member of the Planning Board.
Oddly, the Mayor "doesn't feel comfortable" when it comes to voting for a friend - but with half the seats held by his buddies, why should he be uncomfortable with the outcome of the vote? There's no "potential" for it to go against his wishes.
Wildes also has appointed members who are not donors, among them Vince Monden, Curtis Caviness, Theresa Thomas, Leland Robinson and former member Vernon Walton.
The mayor appointed Walton shortly after endorsing him in an unsuccessful bid for a council seat against Gordon Johnson.
He also filled an alternate slot with former Mayor Sondra Greenberg, who is not a campaign donor. But he replaced her after a year.
"I respect people I disagree with, but it was time to have other people serve," he said.
Yeah. Right. I'm still taking bids on the Bayonne Bridge - and next week I'm going to auction off the Pulaski Skyway.
Wildes twice rejected requests by architect John Clagett, who worked with famed builder Frank Gehry and once received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship. Clagett also is a contributor to the Englewood Report, a blog critical of the mayor.
"He's taken up with the gadflies in town," Wildes said. "He has not taken any interest in any one particular project, other than believing that he is more qualified than others who sit there."
Clagett had a different take.
"I'm just not tied in with the inner circle," he said. "It's the old adage - it's who you know, not what you know."
Gee, I thought it was the old addage, "Vote my way or be replaced." Or maybe it was "Give me money and I'll give you a job."
There are some other ones I'll use to describe it in private, but they aren't really fit for print.
