Soft Corruption: Elizabeth Board of Education

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Winding up the chapter on Patronage from Soft Corruption by William E. Schluter (pages 159-162):

Lesniak’s Laser Focus

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Unfortunately the rest of the interview had no focus on these issues and the context of that statement was in bashing the Elizabeth Board of Education:
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Remember (EBOE Hunt)

While doing research for this blog I was watching Remember and the plot twist there turned out to eerily mirror this piece which was based on a story that came out today on the Elizabeth Board of Education’s (EBOE) hunting for wasteful spending by a prior political faction.  As reported by nj.com:

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Verdict in EBOE free lunch case

After a five-week trial and less than an hour of deliberation the jury has made its decision in the case of a lawyer for the Elizabeth Board of Education (EBOE) charged with official misconduct, tampering with public records, hindering prosecution records and conspiracy in the ‘free lunch’ case.

DeCotiis Update

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……

Elizabeth Board of Education Dirties House

With the Elizabeth Board of Education (EBOE) now firmly in the pockets of the county machine their first move was to hire someone to find out if there were any fiscal shenanigans under the prior regime by taking on a firm expert in such matters. Per nj.com:

The school board voted Thursday to hire a forensic auditor to examine the district’s spending over the past five years.

The forensic auditor will dissect the Elizabeth Board of Education’s past finances and advise the board on possible spending cuts.

After the board named accounting firm Lerch, Vinci & Higgins to the position at the district’s reorganization meeting, commissioner José Rodriguez told NJ Advance Media the firm will look for money that could be saved and reinvested in classrooms.

“Over the years, we believe that there was a lot of wasteful spending, a lot of jobs that were not necessary for educational purposes — jobs that were given either politically, contracts that might have been given that might have had no competitive bidding,” he said.

Lerch, Vinci & Higgins should know a thing or two about what they would be looking for as their campaign donations over the years come to tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats (and Chris Christie in 2009) including major funding for Rahway Democrats:

• no date $1,500 – Saliga Mione Baker & Rachlin
• 11/7/14: $2,600 Steinman, Samson General
• 6/3/14: $5,000 Miles Mojica Baker & Giacobbi
• 4/10/14: $2,600 Steinman, Samson Primary
• 4/18/12: $2,500 Rahway Democratic Committee
• 9/17/10: $2,500 Baker Mione Saliga & Rachlin
• 4/19/10: $1,000 Saliga Mione Baker & Rachlin
• 4/19/10 $2,600 Proctor, Richard Primary

These are the auditors who will be looking for wasteful spending and to help them the EBOE named two professionals in the field:

Jonathan L. Williams of the law firm DeCotiis, FitzPatrick & Cole will serve as the board’s co-general counsel. DeCotiis is deeply connected to New Jersey’s Democratic establishment, including to Trenton, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and former Gov. Jim McGreevey.

Robert F. Varady of the law firm La Corte, Bundy, Varady & Kinsella will also serve as co-general counsel.

La Corte, Bundy, Varady & Kinsella donate exclusively to Union County politicians while DeCotiis, FitzPatrick & Cole you should already know about.

Changes coming at UCWA & EBOE

Happy 2016 and, with the new year, you can expect changes with the Union County Watchdog Association (UCWA) – which we will get to in the coming weeks if all the computer stuff works out – and likewise for the employees of the Elizabeth Board of Education (EBOE) now that the county machine has taken over (taken over the EBOE that is, not the UCWA).

First, a little background: