UCCF 10/25/18: New Fire Training Building

Coming as something of a surprise to the freeholders was the fact that a new building was in the works and possibly that it was NOT Netta Architects who got the call.

2018-905: Authorizing the County Manager to award a Professional Architectural Service Contract, through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, to The Musial Group, of Mountainside, New Jersey to provide Conceptual Design Services for the proposed construction of a new Union County Fire Training Academy Building and parking lots to be located at the existing site on Lower Road, City of Linden, New Jersey for an amount not to exceed $26,663.00. (Union County Engineering Project Number 2017-006)

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Seeing the Light – At a Steep Cost (To Taxpayers)

Back in 2010 when the DeCotiis law firm suckered the Union County freeholder board into bonding to put up solar panels at what was supposed to be no cost then-freeholder Daniel Sullivan was more than eager to reward his political patrons by signing taxpayers up for this boondoggle:
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Today he admitted as much to Bloomberg:

UCCF 7/12/18: Consultants Group I&I & 1 no vote

2018-649: Authorizing the County Manager to award a contract to Group I&I Consultancy, Union, New Jersey, from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019, for Comprehensive Professional Services in an amount not to exceed $75,000.

IGO (You Pay)

Dreaming of getting away from it all at a place like this?

In two weeks that is exactly where four county employees will be and you will be paying ($9,158) for it.

UCCF 5/24/18: Buying Moodys Rating

From the last freeholder meeting (in anticipation of a June 15, 2018 bond sale):
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What a triple-A bond rating from Moodys really reaffirms is that Union County is willing to pay a lot of money for it. How much did the county pay and how much did Moodys dig into county finances?

Updates – Union County Employees and a Video

Data on participants in the New Jersey Retirement System have been updated through 2017 on the state website and here is  a spreadsheet, sorted by Union County employer and then name, of 21,379 employees getting total annual salaries of $1,404,457,957.

The 229 employees with salaries of over $150,000 annually are listed below, but first, something else due for an update:

Holley/Cryan Weigh In

What stands out in the Mahr/Scutari battle over who will be the next Union County Democratic chairperson (ie fundraiser, candidate selector, project instigator) is the total lack of focus on issues of interest to the average taxpayer (ie taxes). The reason is that it is not general taxpayers who are the electorate here but rather committee people and campaign donors who have their own agendas (ie. county jobs for their kids, building and consulting work for themselves, future ballot positions) which is why when insidernj reports on this internecine dust-up it’s all personal: