When you hire an employee, you usually try to hire someone with the most qualifications and/or experience pertinent to the job he or she will be doing.
At least that is the theory.
In the city of Trenton, it appears that the inverse is more the rule than the exception. The hiring policy in city hall seems to follow the old adage "it is not what you know, but who you know."
Marc McKithen, city law director, is a case in point.
Marc is bright, well educated, and with a strong ethical bent. He is not an expert in municipal law...especially the byzantine version followed here in NJ. McKithen admitted as much while being questioned by city council woman Marge Caldwell-Wilson during his confirmation (advice and consent) appearance before the governing body.
Apparently, above and beyond his actual qualifications for the position, McKithen comes from a large, well-known local family. One of his uncles gave a substantial contribution to the Tony Mack campaign. Marc made a contribution as well.
During his brief tenure as the city attorney, Marc made some bad calls and a couple of good ones.
One notable example of the latter was McKithen's lack of understanding of the New Jersey's public purchasing laws that lead to the ADPC/Lynx IT consulting contract debacle. It resulted in the case going before Judge Linda Feinberg, who not only decided against the city's position but gave Mr. McKithen quite the tongue lashing. The judge was none too pleased with the city's complete abandonment of the proscribed purchasing process.
To the good, Marc McKithen famously and correctly declared the legal services contract between the city and the Cooper Levenson law firm void due to campaign contribution law (pay-to-play). The Cooper Levenson firm is headed by Lloyd Levenson. The firm contributed significantly to the Partners for Progress political action committee that in turn gave money to Mayor Mack's campaign. The contribution was allegedly withdrawn by the firm and repaid by the campaign although there was never any hard proof of that.
What didn't come out at the time or in the aftermath, was that Cooper Levenson also made a $2,500 contribution to another political action committee, Trenton Thrives that in turn spent money on behalf on Keith Hamilton's campaign to become mayor of Trenton. This also violates the city's pay-to-play law and would have disqualified the firm from doing business with the city.
Levenson himself served as a chair of the Mayor's inaugural ball. His name was featured prominently on the invitation to the event. In most circles, that constitutes solicitation on behalf of the Mayor and thus would violate the pay-to-play law as well.
All that didn't seem to matter and the administration saw to it that council approved the contract to Cooper Levenson in the fall of 2010. Only later, when things started getting heated in the press, did Mr. McKithen (who, it must be pointed out, was on staff but not yet the actual law director when the contract was approved) determine the contract to be null and void.
The Mayor quickly issued a follow up message stating that Mr. McKithen was wrong and that the contract was legal and in force. As the public turned up the heat on the deal, Cooper Levenson oh so gallantly "withdrew" from the contract.
Then came the onslaught of Open Public Records Act requests. Reportedly, the Mayor didn't like the fact that McKithen was complying with the law and releasing information to the public. Information that demonstrated just how inept, corrupt and sloppy the Mack administration was.
Rather than clean up his act, the Mayor decided to clean house and put pressure on McKithen to resign.
McKithen has apparently given up trying to bring some semblance of law and order to the Mack administration and has tendered his resignation effective June 30.
So the guy who was trying to do the right thing is being forced out of an administration that needs all of the competency it can get.
Bass ackwards.
Showing posts with label Partners For Progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Partners For Progress. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, April 08, 2011
Remember this guy?
Remember back last summer when Mayor Mack wanted to appoint Andrew Weber the Business Administrator for the City of Trenton? You know, after Bill Guhl un-volunteered himself and before Andrew McCrosson (later to resign and plead guilty to embezzlement) got to hold the chair for a few months. The problem with the webe appointment was a blatant conflict of interest. Weber is a partner with the Mt. Holly law firm of Riley and Riley. Riley and Riley were being considered for a legal services contract with the city. Mr. Weber, who also served on Mayor Mack's transition team and was a former special counsel with Cooper Levenson. (You remember them, right?)
Well, it looks like Mr. Weber got the tiniest of wrist slaps from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) this week:
NEW JERSEY ELECTION
LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMISSION,
Complainant,
v.
ANDREW WEBER,
Respondent.
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (hereafter, the Commission) considered at its meeting of March 15, 2011 the Complaint, issued on October 27, 2010, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 52:13C-18 et seq., for non-filing of the Governmental Affairs Agent Quarterly Report (Form Q-4) for the 2009 third quarter report period, which Complaint is hereby incorporated by reference in this Final Decision. The Commission considered the Respondent’s Affidavit and Waiver of Hearing submitted in response to the Complaint, and by a vote of 4-0 adopted as its Final Decision the proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law set forth in the Complaint, after modifying them to reflect that the Respondent filed a Governmental Affairs Agent Quarterly Report (Form Q-4) for the 2009 third quarter report period on February 1, 2011 (476 days late).
THEREFORE, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 52:13C-23.1 and N.J.A.C. 19:25-20.18, the Commission hereby REPRIMANDS the Respondent and imposes a penalty in the amount of $300.00 for late filing of Form Q-4. Respondent submitted payment of $300.00. No further payment is required.
Date of Mailing: March 30, 2011 BY: _____________________
CERTIFIED MAIL NO. 7009 3410 0001 8442 8922
RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
AND FIRST CLASS MAIL
To be sure, a $300 fine is nothing to Mr. Weber. And we're sure his late filing of a Government Affairs Agent (lobbyist) report was a mere technical oversight. Right.
Just like not mentioning the various PAC's Mr. Weber is involved in during all of the Cooper Levenson/City of Trenton controversy was an oversight. You know, PAC's like Voters United New Jersey that Mr. Weber just happens to have the sole signatory power on their checking account.
According to the 4th quarter ELEC report filed (filed about two weeks late, btw) by Voters United, Riley and Riley, along with Cooper Levenson and Hydro-San (which has the same address and ownership as Alaimo Engineering, another consulting firm that has been trying to get work with the city of Trenton) all gave $5000 to Voters United last December. In that same report, we see that Voters United just happened to make a $2500 contribution to the questionable local Trenton PAC, Partners For Progress that same month.
But don't worry. Mr. Weber, Mr. Levenson and friends have no undue influence over the Mack administration. None whatsoever.
Right.
Well, it looks like Mr. Weber got the tiniest of wrist slaps from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) this week:
NEW JERSEY ELECTION LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMISSION
P.O. Box 185
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0185
NEW JERSEY ELECTION
LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMISSION,
Complainant,
FINAL DECISION FOR
LATE FILING
v.
ANDREW WEBER,
Respondent.
C-1598-1-2009L
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (hereafter, the Commission) considered at its meeting of March 15, 2011 the Complaint, issued on October 27, 2010, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 52:13C-18 et seq., for non-filing of the Governmental Affairs Agent Quarterly Report (Form Q-4) for the 2009 third quarter report period, which Complaint is hereby incorporated by reference in this Final Decision. The Commission considered the Respondent’s Affidavit and Waiver of Hearing submitted in response to the Complaint, and by a vote of 4-0 adopted as its Final Decision the proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law set forth in the Complaint, after modifying them to reflect that the Respondent filed a Governmental Affairs Agent Quarterly Report (Form Q-4) for the 2009 third quarter report period on February 1, 2011 (476 days late).
PENALTY
THEREFORE, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 52:13C-23.1 and N.J.A.C. 19:25-20.18, the Commission hereby REPRIMANDS the Respondent and imposes a penalty in the amount of $300.00 for late filing of Form Q-4. Respondent submitted payment of $300.00. No further payment is required.
NEW JERSEY ELECTION LAW
ENFORCEMENT COMMISSION
Date of Mailing: March 30, 2011 BY: _____________________
RONALD DEFILIPPIS
Chairman
CERTIFIED MAIL NO. 7009 3410 0001 8442 8922
RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
AND FIRST CLASS MAIL
To be sure, a $300 fine is nothing to Mr. Weber. And we're sure his late filing of a Government Affairs Agent (lobbyist) report was a mere technical oversight. Right.
Just like not mentioning the various PAC's Mr. Weber is involved in during all of the Cooper Levenson/City of Trenton controversy was an oversight. You know, PAC's like Voters United New Jersey that Mr. Weber just happens to have the sole signatory power on their checking account.
According to the 4th quarter ELEC report filed (filed about two weeks late, btw) by Voters United, Riley and Riley, along with Cooper Levenson and Hydro-San (which has the same address and ownership as Alaimo Engineering, another consulting firm that has been trying to get work with the city of Trenton) all gave $5000 to Voters United last December. In that same report, we see that Voters United just happened to make a $2500 contribution to the questionable local Trenton PAC, Partners For Progress that same month.
But don't worry. Mr. Weber, Mr. Levenson and friends have no undue influence over the Mack administration. None whatsoever.
Right.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Cash, lies and videotape
Show me the money, part II
So we have a Political Action Committee (PAC) known as Partners For Progress (PFP) whose stated mission is:
As was pointed out in the previous post, there are some interesting “problems” with PFP’s required reporting to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. The $7200 contribution from the Cooper Levenson law firm that was apparently wheeled to Tony Mack’s mayoral campaign was covered in the prior post.
We will track some other interesting contributions later. This time out let’s look at some of the expenditures that PFP reported.
The first thing that comes up on the expense pages is a listing of payments made to individuals for “community outreach.” This is another term for “street money,” money paid to individuals to get out the vote. By law, these payments must be made by check and reported with each person’s name, address, and the number of the check used to pay them.
PFP reported 79 such payments of $25 each to individuals. That would be a total of $1975 paid for community outreach. Would be…except seven of the reported payments are duplicate entries. So it was really 72 individuals receiving a total of $1800. Guess PFP is somewhat sloppy with their record keeping.
Of the 72 individuals who received payments from PFP, 30 don’t have check numbers listed. That is a violation of state election law. Twelve of the 72 don’t have an address listed. That is also a violation of state election law.
Pretty sloppy record keeping, don’t you think?
Or was this report just hurriedly put together because of the investigation that Politicker NJ reported in December of last year?
Interesting, too, is that PFP paid a Jeff Meyers a $2500 “consulting” fee. One might wonder what kind of consulting Mr. Meyers provided to PFP. The report doesn’t give the required full address for Mr. Meyers, just the fact that his is from Burlington, NJ.
Is it safe to assume, then, that this Mr. Jeff Meyers is the very same Jeff Meyers who stepped down as the Treasurer of the Burlington County Democratic Committee because of questions surrounding some money “wheeling” and pay to play schemes (sound familiar?)
If we are talking about the same Jeff Meyers, is it not reasonable to expect that a former county political committee treasurer would know the rules for proper ELEC reporting? Wouldn’t it have been prudent to seek his advice and counsel in preparing and filing the required reports in a timely manner?
Three other expenditures jump off the page as one peruses this report.
Under the heading of “Itemized Contributions Made to Candidates and Committees” are entries for the $7200 contribution made to Mr. Mack’s campaign, a $250 contribution to Councilwoman At Large Kathy McBride’s campaign, and a $5000 contribution to Juan Martinez’s campaign.
The Mack contribution seems directly related to the now disputed Cooper Levenson contribution to PFP.
The contribution received by Ms. McBride’s campaign falls beneath the $300 threshold for required reporting and so she apparently didn’t. There are additional expenditures listed as “in-kind” on her behalf that would, when paired with the $250 contribution, put her over that limit and require her to report the aggregate contributions. It looks as though PFP may have failed to notify these candidates of these “in-kind” contributions as required by law and the blame, again, lies with them.
Now the $5000 contribution given to Mr. Martinez presents an interesting situation. The date of the contribution is for June 15, the date of the runoff election. Mr. Martinez, who is one of the candidates woefully lacking in compliance with NJ ELEC reporting requirements, had apparently not filed any reports for the runoff part of the election cycle. So we don’t know if he actually received this money or not.
Interestingly, in a videotaped conversation posted on Robert Chilson’s Trenton United Blog, Mr. Martinez states that he never received any money from PFP. He claims that he received a phone call from someone connected with PFP asking if they could put him down as the recipient of a contribution. Martinez admits that he probably shouldn’t have given the go ahead, even with the attached caveat that if the contribution was questioned it would deflect back on PFP.
Is this another indication that PFP hurriedly put together a report in response to the ELEC investigation and “faked” the contribution?
Or did Mr. Martinez actually take a $5000 contribution and not report it?
Again, all it would take is the production of a copy of the cancelled check to show who is telling the truth.
But that seems to be too much to expect from either PFP or Martinez.
So we have a Political Action Committee (PAC) known as Partners For Progress (PFP) whose stated mission is:
Partners for Progress PAC’s mission is to not only raise money – but also to raise awareness about the political process, educating potential candidates, candidates, and organizations on how to successfully participate in the political process.Well, PFP seems to have gotten the raising money part right…too bad they are a little shaky on how to successfully participate in the political process.
As was pointed out in the previous post, there are some interesting “problems” with PFP’s required reporting to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. The $7200 contribution from the Cooper Levenson law firm that was apparently wheeled to Tony Mack’s mayoral campaign was covered in the prior post.
We will track some other interesting contributions later. This time out let’s look at some of the expenditures that PFP reported.
The first thing that comes up on the expense pages is a listing of payments made to individuals for “community outreach.” This is another term for “street money,” money paid to individuals to get out the vote. By law, these payments must be made by check and reported with each person’s name, address, and the number of the check used to pay them.
PFP reported 79 such payments of $25 each to individuals. That would be a total of $1975 paid for community outreach. Would be…except seven of the reported payments are duplicate entries. So it was really 72 individuals receiving a total of $1800. Guess PFP is somewhat sloppy with their record keeping.
Of the 72 individuals who received payments from PFP, 30 don’t have check numbers listed. That is a violation of state election law. Twelve of the 72 don’t have an address listed. That is also a violation of state election law.
Pretty sloppy record keeping, don’t you think?
Or was this report just hurriedly put together because of the investigation that Politicker NJ reported in December of last year?
Interesting, too, is that PFP paid a Jeff Meyers a $2500 “consulting” fee. One might wonder what kind of consulting Mr. Meyers provided to PFP. The report doesn’t give the required full address for Mr. Meyers, just the fact that his is from Burlington, NJ.
Is it safe to assume, then, that this Mr. Jeff Meyers is the very same Jeff Meyers who stepped down as the Treasurer of the Burlington County Democratic Committee because of questions surrounding some money “wheeling” and pay to play schemes (sound familiar?)
If we are talking about the same Jeff Meyers, is it not reasonable to expect that a former county political committee treasurer would know the rules for proper ELEC reporting? Wouldn’t it have been prudent to seek his advice and counsel in preparing and filing the required reports in a timely manner?
Three other expenditures jump off the page as one peruses this report.
Under the heading of “Itemized Contributions Made to Candidates and Committees” are entries for the $7200 contribution made to Mr. Mack’s campaign, a $250 contribution to Councilwoman At Large Kathy McBride’s campaign, and a $5000 contribution to Juan Martinez’s campaign.
The Mack contribution seems directly related to the now disputed Cooper Levenson contribution to PFP.
The contribution received by Ms. McBride’s campaign falls beneath the $300 threshold for required reporting and so she apparently didn’t. There are additional expenditures listed as “in-kind” on her behalf that would, when paired with the $250 contribution, put her over that limit and require her to report the aggregate contributions. It looks as though PFP may have failed to notify these candidates of these “in-kind” contributions as required by law and the blame, again, lies with them.
Now the $5000 contribution given to Mr. Martinez presents an interesting situation. The date of the contribution is for June 15, the date of the runoff election. Mr. Martinez, who is one of the candidates woefully lacking in compliance with NJ ELEC reporting requirements, had apparently not filed any reports for the runoff part of the election cycle. So we don’t know if he actually received this money or not.
Interestingly, in a videotaped conversation posted on Robert Chilson’s Trenton United Blog, Mr. Martinez states that he never received any money from PFP. He claims that he received a phone call from someone connected with PFP asking if they could put him down as the recipient of a contribution. Martinez admits that he probably shouldn’t have given the go ahead, even with the attached caveat that if the contribution was questioned it would deflect back on PFP.
Is this another indication that PFP hurriedly put together a report in response to the ELEC investigation and “faked” the contribution?
Or did Mr. Martinez actually take a $5000 contribution and not report it?
Again, all it would take is the production of a copy of the cancelled check to show who is telling the truth.
But that seems to be too much to expect from either PFP or Martinez.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Show me the money
If you have been hiding under a rock or stuck in an ice cave the past several days, you might have missed the latest in the ever lengthening line of scandals to hit the Tony Mack administration.
In a nutshell, the city awarded a contract for general legal counsel to the law firm of Cooper Levenson last October. The head guy at Cooper Levenson, Lloyd Levenson, was on Mayor Mack’s transition team and he headed up the committee that put together the Mayor’s Inaugural Ball.
The Mayor wanted Cooper Levenson to get the city contract so badly that he sent it before council three times before he could muster the four votes needed to carry out his desire. At the time, many raised the issue that Mr. Levenson, whose name was prominently featured on the invitation to the Mayor’s gala, was soliciting on behalf of the Mayor and therefore his firm was not eligible to be awarded the contract.
Mr. Levenson, of course, denied that he ever contributed to or solicited contributions on behalf of Mayor Mack. Four members of Trenton’s city council: Alex Bethea, Phyllis Holly-Ward, Kathy McBride, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson voted to approve the contract.
On January 31, the Times published a story detailing a $7,200 contribution made to a local Political Action Committee (PAC), Partners For Progress (PFP). PFP in turn made an equal contribution to Mayor Mack’s campaign.
A spokesman for Cooper Levenson claims that the firm sent a letter requesting the return of the contribution so they could proceed with soliciting business from the city. The spokesman claims the contribution was repaid and so the potential violation of the city’s Pay to Play ordinance was averted.
If that is the case…show us the cancelled check proving that the contribution was indeed refunded, when it was refunded and that it was re-deposited into the law firm’s account.
Until that check is produced no one should have to take Mr. Levenson’s or anyone else’s word that the violation was “cured,” as the lawyers say.
As for PFP, their tardy reporting to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) just may be central to what is looking to be a very interesting story.
Partners For Progress was formed, in early 2010 by Cynthia Taylor, Carla Hogan and Pete Fields: two Trenton residents (Fields and Hogan) and the owner of a Trenton business (Taylor owns Jet Wine and Liquor on Willow Street). At the bottom of a press release distributed about 3:00 pm on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 PFP states the following:
PFP is required by law to file quarterly reports detailing their fundraising and expenditures. Since they “organized” in February of last 2010, their first report covering inception through March 31, 2010 was filed when due on April 15, 2010. No additional reports were filed until January of this year when the one covering the period ending June 30 and due on July15 was given to ELEC.
The reports due October 15 and January 15 for the 3rd and 4th calendar quarters have yet to be filed (or at least aren’t yet posted to the ELEC website).
{Note: As far as that goes, many of our candidates/elected officials are behind in their report filing as well. But we’ll get to that some other time.}
Besides the late and missing filings, there are some other issues with PFP’s reporting.
In December, Politicker NJ reported that ELEC was investigating the unreported and excessive contribution made to Tony Mack’s campaign by PFP.
By law, a PAC like PFP can only contribute up to $8,200.00 to a candidate committee in an election. The Mack campaign reported receiving a contribution of $8,805 from PFP…$605 over the limit. PFP hadn’t filed the required reports so there was no record of the contributions from that side…a violation of the state’s campaign finance laws.
Interestingly, the Mack campaign also reported a reimbursement back to PFP of $3,173. But it only had to return the $605 excess. Hmmm.
Why then, did Mack return an additional $2,568 to PFP? There’s no details on the Mack report…could it have been a “partial” repayment of the infamous $7,200 from Cooper Levenson?
Let’s say it was returned to PFP so PFP could in turn repay Cooper Levenson. Where is the documentation?
PFP’s sole report, filed months late and only after the story appeared on Politicker NJ has an entry showing the return of the $3,173 from the Mack campaign but it doesn’t show any reimbursement…in part or in whole…to Cooper Levenson.
Did the reimbursement come in the next reporting period (July 1 – September 30)?
We don’t know because there is no evidence of PFP report having been filed for that or any subsequent period.
In the Times article on this mess published February 3, reporter Alex Zdan wrote the following:
Levenson claims there was a full return of the contribution, but Ms. Taylor doesn’t know. And, according to the paperwork filed with ELEC, Ms. Taylor signs the checks for PFP.
A reading of the city of Trenton’s Pay to Play ordinance makes it pretty clear that the contribution has to be returned in full before the violation is corrected.
Let’s look at another aspect of the PFP report. The first sheet of the 30 page document gives a summary accounting of the PAC’s funds. It shows an entry of cash on hand of $2,248.71.
If PFP hadn’t returned the $7200 contribution to Cooper Levenson by the June 30th close of the reporting period as indicated by the report, then the refund must have occurred later (if at all).
Since no subsequent reports have yet to be filed, we can’t determine if a later payment was actually made. But with a balance of $2,248.71 shown on the report, PFP would have to find another $4,951.29 somewhere to make up the difference and be able to return the contribution to Cooper Levenson.
Again, no subsequent reports have been filed, so PFP can’t show that they took in the money.
Doesn’t seem likely that they returned Cooper Levenson’s contribution, does it?
There are other interesting aspects of the PFP report filed on January 27, 2011. We’ll get to those in the next installment.
In a nutshell, the city awarded a contract for general legal counsel to the law firm of Cooper Levenson last October. The head guy at Cooper Levenson, Lloyd Levenson, was on Mayor Mack’s transition team and he headed up the committee that put together the Mayor’s Inaugural Ball.
The Mayor wanted Cooper Levenson to get the city contract so badly that he sent it before council three times before he could muster the four votes needed to carry out his desire. At the time, many raised the issue that Mr. Levenson, whose name was prominently featured on the invitation to the Mayor’s gala, was soliciting on behalf of the Mayor and therefore his firm was not eligible to be awarded the contract.
Mr. Levenson, of course, denied that he ever contributed to or solicited contributions on behalf of Mayor Mack. Four members of Trenton’s city council: Alex Bethea, Phyllis Holly-Ward, Kathy McBride, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson voted to approve the contract.
On January 31, the Times published a story detailing a $7,200 contribution made to a local Political Action Committee (PAC), Partners For Progress (PFP). PFP in turn made an equal contribution to Mayor Mack’s campaign.
A spokesman for Cooper Levenson claims that the firm sent a letter requesting the return of the contribution so they could proceed with soliciting business from the city. The spokesman claims the contribution was repaid and so the potential violation of the city’s Pay to Play ordinance was averted.
If that is the case…show us the cancelled check proving that the contribution was indeed refunded, when it was refunded and that it was re-deposited into the law firm’s account.
Until that check is produced no one should have to take Mr. Levenson’s or anyone else’s word that the violation was “cured,” as the lawyers say.
As for PFP, their tardy reporting to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) just may be central to what is looking to be a very interesting story.
Partners For Progress was formed, in early 2010 by Cynthia Taylor, Carla Hogan and Pete Fields: two Trenton residents (Fields and Hogan) and the owner of a Trenton business (Taylor owns Jet Wine and Liquor on Willow Street). At the bottom of a press release distributed about 3:00 pm on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 PFP states the following:
Partners for Progress PAC — Partners for Progress PAC is an independent, non-partisan group of individuals dedicated to supporting candidates, organizations or causes who demonstrate a commitment to advancing the interests of their community socially and economically. Through political participation and organizational support,Well, maybe Ms. Taylor, Ms. Hogan and Mr. Fields should have raised their own awareness and educated themselves on how to correctly participate in the political process.
Partners for Progress PAC plans to endorse candidates or causes who have shown an interest in shaping good government policies that will advance the issues important to our organization.
Partners for Progress PAC’s mission is to not only raise money – but also to raise awareness about the political process, educating potential candidates, candidates, and organizations on how to successfully participate in the political process.
PFP is required by law to file quarterly reports detailing their fundraising and expenditures. Since they “organized” in February of last 2010, their first report covering inception through March 31, 2010 was filed when due on April 15, 2010. No additional reports were filed until January of this year when the one covering the period ending June 30 and due on July15 was given to ELEC.
The reports due October 15 and January 15 for the 3rd and 4th calendar quarters have yet to be filed (or at least aren’t yet posted to the ELEC website).
{Note: As far as that goes, many of our candidates/elected officials are behind in their report filing as well. But we’ll get to that some other time.}
Besides the late and missing filings, there are some other issues with PFP’s reporting.
In December, Politicker NJ reported that ELEC was investigating the unreported and excessive contribution made to Tony Mack’s campaign by PFP.
By law, a PAC like PFP can only contribute up to $8,200.00 to a candidate committee in an election. The Mack campaign reported receiving a contribution of $8,805 from PFP…$605 over the limit. PFP hadn’t filed the required reports so there was no record of the contributions from that side…a violation of the state’s campaign finance laws.
Interestingly, the Mack campaign also reported a reimbursement back to PFP of $3,173. But it only had to return the $605 excess. Hmmm.
Why then, did Mack return an additional $2,568 to PFP? There’s no details on the Mack report…could it have been a “partial” repayment of the infamous $7,200 from Cooper Levenson?
Let’s say it was returned to PFP so PFP could in turn repay Cooper Levenson. Where is the documentation?
PFP’s sole report, filed months late and only after the story appeared on Politicker NJ has an entry showing the return of the $3,173 from the Mack campaign but it doesn’t show any reimbursement…in part or in whole…to Cooper Levenson.
Did the reimbursement come in the next reporting period (July 1 – September 30)?
We don’t know because there is no evidence of PFP report having been filed for that or any subsequent period.
In the Times article on this mess published February 3, reporter Alex Zdan wrote the following:
According to Mack, the city received Cooper Levenson’s refund letter when it was sent to Partners For Progress June 28, three days before Mack became mayor. A copy of the letter could not be provided to The Times last night.So was the money returned or wasn’t it?
“The problem is, it’s in a locked office and I don’t have the key,” mayoral spokeswoman Lauren Ira said.
McKithen could not be reached for comment last night.
Partners For Progress’ Cynthia Taylor denied the $7,200 was specifically for Mack.
“We didn’t approach him, he came to us, he didn’t say, ‘This is for Tony, or anything like that,’” Taylor said yesterday.
Although Levenson said the firm received a full return of their contribution, Taylor said she was not sure.
“Well, like I said, I don’t know what’s going on, what happened since then,” she said. “I just know they asked for the money back sometime in June.”
Levenson claims there was a full return of the contribution, but Ms. Taylor doesn’t know. And, according to the paperwork filed with ELEC, Ms. Taylor signs the checks for PFP.
A reading of the city of Trenton’s Pay to Play ordinance makes it pretty clear that the contribution has to be returned in full before the violation is corrected.
Let’s look at another aspect of the PFP report. The first sheet of the 30 page document gives a summary accounting of the PAC’s funds. It shows an entry of cash on hand of $2,248.71.
If PFP hadn’t returned the $7200 contribution to Cooper Levenson by the June 30th close of the reporting period as indicated by the report, then the refund must have occurred later (if at all).
Since no subsequent reports have yet to be filed, we can’t determine if a later payment was actually made. But with a balance of $2,248.71 shown on the report, PFP would have to find another $4,951.29 somewhere to make up the difference and be able to return the contribution to Cooper Levenson.
Again, no subsequent reports have been filed, so PFP can’t show that they took in the money.
Doesn’t seem likely that they returned Cooper Levenson’s contribution, does it?
There are other interesting aspects of the PFP report filed on January 27, 2011. We’ll get to those in the next installment.
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