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Chronology, Documents, and Emails Show That DEP is Spinning on Sandy Grant Program Awards

DEP  Press Office Calls Criticism By Former Commissioner Mauriello and Their Own Data “X-Files”

Source: NJDEP, presented on Oct. 28, 2013 to grant awardees

“The idea that there’s something nefarious to this, that the people that have dedicated their time to this, are sitting in a room to concoct ways to deny towns funds, it’s getting to be an X-file,” he [DEP Ragonese] told NJ.com. “It’s paranoia to the nth degree, and it’s wrong.”

The final awards are expected to be released sometime in April, he said.

“If we do something wrong, they can call us on it,” he said. “Don’t call us on it until it’s done.” ~~~ Christie Administration criticizes WNYC Sandy report, says Hoboken aid figures not finalized  (3/5/14)

Before you even begin to read this story, take a good look at the map above.

The map was created by DEP on October 22, 2013. Note that it maps the location of grant “awardees” – that’s past tense, as in “final”, i.e. your town received a grant. That DEP map was presented by BPU to a mandatory meeting of grant recipients on October 28, 2013. The hundreds of towns that were denied grants under the Christie Administration’s grant award scoring system were NOT invited to this meeting.

OK, keep that in mind, as we now move to today’s story.

Christie administration spokesmen are denying critical media reports of mismanagement of a $25 million Sandy Hazard Mitigation Grant Energy program fund.

Extraordinary straw man arguments and unprecedented rhetorical attacks include calling the coverage “X-files” and “paranoid” – which is really quite amazing because the story was based on DEP’s own data and supported and sourced by former DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello.

NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) press spokesman Larry Ragonese claims that WNYC & NJ Spotlight’s investigative Report –  which showed that the program is mismanaged and “riddled with errors” – is just flat out wrong, and the critics are “X-files” paranoids.

Hey Larry, no one is claiming that DEP staffers are “sitting in a room to concoct ways to deny towns funds”.

What I and others are claiming is that the energy grant program was seriously flawed in design, mismanaged, “riddled with errors”, and politicized.

At best, DEP, BPU, Gov.’s Office, et al mismanaged the process and withheld information for obviously political reasons (i.e. the towns that were denied).

At worst, the vague criteria and murky review process provided opportunities for political interventions on allocation decisions.

The evidence to support the politicization claims I’ve made is that emails and documents I was provided by an insider involved in the process show that Gov. Christie’s Office was involved in the design of the program and coordinated a plan to notify grant recipients and issue press releases just weeks before the election (use the “good news” to promote the Governor’s political interest), while those towns that did not receive grants were kept in the dark (suppress the bad news).

In attacking critics, Ragonese makes two excuses for what he characterizes as technical errors that are obvious lies. He claims that:

1) grant funding allocations were “preliminary” and subject to revision; and

2) there were minor human errors in data entry of 19,000 data points.

Because these lies and spin are being reported uncritically by the Star Ledger and NJTV – and WNYC/Spotlight have not publicly defended their reporting as far as I know – I need to document the real story.

• Poor Design and Mismanagement Explain Mistakes and Delays

I’ll rebut the second “human error” point first.

The grant allocation spreadsheet was generated by data sets – using a computer, not manual tabulations. If DEP managers are using pencils in this day and age, they should be fired.

But more importantly, the big mistakes result from:1) the design of the grant program – vague policy objectives, poor guidance to applicants, overly complex and procedurally murky review process, no transparency or public participation, or legislative or media oversight, et al; 2) the point system based scoring methodology, which produced results that were absurd and not rationally based on need; and 3) poor program management and bureaucratic bumbling and incompetence.

The fact that NJ had to ask for two extensions of FEMA’s 1 year deadline on this program has not been reported. 

That fact alone demonstrates that the program was mismanaged.

More importantly, the delay by the State flies in the face of Gov. Christie’s finger pointing – as he prances around sham Town Hall – blaming federal bureaucrats for all the Sandy problems.

This Sandy grant program was totally under the control of Gov. Christie’s administration.

• Chronology shows that Grant allocation were “final” back in October

Ragonese’s claim that the grant allocation decisions are still “preliminary” is absurd.

Multiple documents and a basic chronology show that they were final way back in October 2013 – here it is (in addition to the map above):

BTW, OEM may have managed the “grant distribution process” but I have emails that show (Bridget Kelly’s) Gov. Christie Office of Inter-Governmental Affairs made phone calls to the towns that got the grants. Good news promotion weeks before an election – no wonder CHristie got endorsed by emergency responders –

And with $210 million more in grants coming down the pike in Second Round HUD money, no wonder no municipal officials are criticizing the administration – read this letter that makes that threat implicit.

• Conclusions:

1) This is not just about Hoboken – this is a statewide program. But the story does expose multiple lies by Christie administration officials – just read this document claiming that Hoboken was not shortchanged in light of the HMPG allocations.

2) The performance on this $25 million program does not inspire confidence that the Christie Administration’s much larger $210 million “Energy Resilience Bank” proposed as part of the HUD CDBG second round $1.4 billion plan is workable.

3) DEP Press Office is serving political objectives, not a good faith straight source of reliable information.

4) Star Ledger and NJTV are lame lapdogs in uncritically regurgitating DEP spin.

5) The irony is that I support the distributed energy, micro-grid, and renewable energy goals of the program.

*** But, if the BPU supports those goals in this $25 million grant program and in the $210 million proposed “Energy Resilience Bank”, why are theory not mandating that NJ utilities implement these same programs in BPU review of  multi-billion “NJ Strong” resilience plans?

More to follow on that question.