For you new readers and followers from the Elizabeth Board of Education (EBOE) who are wondering what to expect now that DeCotiis Fitzpatrick & Cole, LLP (DeCotiis) is your new general co-counsel, perhaps a little history is in order on the influence DeCotiis has had with the county……
In exchange for massive campaign contributions annually to Union County Democrat freeholder candidates (filtered through Gerald Green starting in 2014) DeCotiis gets appointed as counsel to the Union County Improvement Authority (UCIA) from which they have gotten over $12 million in fees since 2004 (the latest year we have data on). Here are the numbers:
Spreadsheet taken from NJELEC website data showing individual lawyers at DeCotiis donating.
Spreadsheet of fees paid to DeCotiis based on UCIA bills-paid data
The UCIA was supposed to help towns with their building projects but the costs of going through the UCIA are so prohibitive that only the county itself and the odd town that can be suckered into building a $50 million community center wind up using them. Partly because of that dropoff in projects DeCotiis’ fees for 2015 have been cut in half and they may be looking to the EBOE to make that up. Watch for solar panels. This did come to pass:
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countywatchers 