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Revolving Door – Undue Influence – Preferential Access – Inside Information

Abuses Continue Unabated & Unchallenged

Government By and For the Corporations

Bob Jordan of the Asbury Park Press has a story running today that just makes my head explode – echoes of a darkly ironic prior episode that very few folks are aware of or are likely to perceive of any dots to connect to today’s story even if they could remember it.

Let me explain: this is an inside baseball tale worth repeating – connecting past and present events. Read the whole thing before getting to the lede I buried.

Bob wrote a story today about ethical concerns about a Christie Crony, Michele Brown:

TRENTON – The woman behind the award of a $25 million state contract for Sandy recovery TV commercials starring Gov. Chris Christie is leaving her government job.

But Michele Brown is maintaining close ties to the Republican governor, raising questions on whether she’ll have an outsized influence with her longtime boss in her new job with business marketing group Choose New Jersey.

Brown’s group, Choose NJ, is a corporate pay to play racket, as the Bergen Record recently documented.

Bob relied on former Senator Bill Schluter – a man I recently spoke with – to explain the giant loopholes in NJ’s ethics laws:

New Jersey has “revolving door” laws in place — designed to restrict the influence former state officials have on government policy – but the rules don’t cover Brown’s job change or prevent Brown from pursuing more tax breaks for her group’s members, said former state Sen. William Schluter, a Republican and past member of the State Ethics Commission.

“She’s a close associate of the governor and there’s been some talk about the access she’s had and the access she’ll have in her new role,” Schluter said. “If someone who was a lawmaker or head of a certain department wanted to become a lobbyist, they’d have to wait at least a year. That doesn’t apply here. There’s a fine line when you go to work for a group that’s having a particular interest advanced.”

So far so good – but here’s where the irony erupts.

Bob quotes a fellow Choose NJ member to defend Michele Brown, a developer named Jerry Zaro:

Long Branch resident Jerry Zaro, who headed the state Office of Economic Growth under former Gov. Jon Corzine, said Brown “is too talented to sit on the sidelines.”

Zaro is an attorney at Sills Cummis & Gross, a Choose New Jersey member.

As Jeff Tittel might say, relying on Jerry Zaro to vouch for ethics is like using Ben & Jerry as a source of diet advice.

Back during the Corzine Administration, we filed an ethics complaint against a DEP political hack that gave access and inside information to benefit Mr. Zaro.

On February 25, 2008, we reported:

Trenton — A top aide to the New Jersey environmental agency improperly worked to locate financing, provide coaching and smooth regulatory hurdles for a controversial beach-front development, according to a complaint filed today before the State Ethics Commission by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The complaint requests investigation of a key state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) official, who appears to have broken ethics rules against providing inside information and showing undue partiality to a permit applicant.

The case involves plans by developers to turn the historic Takanassee Beach Club property in Long Branch into a multi-unit residential complex. Historic buildings on the site date back to the U.S. Lifesaving Service, the forerunner of the U.S. Coast Guard. The proposed development has drawn considerable opposition. […]

“This is simply outrageous – you have a state official making selective disclosures of pre-decisional and enforcement sensitive information to representatives of a developer with a known economic stake in the outcome of a permit during the course of DEP review,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe who filed the complaint. “Ms. Comfort has clearly undermined the integrity of the permitting process and created an unmistakable appearance of favoring one side in a contested action.”

“Unbelievably, DEP appears to be defending Ms. Comfort’s actions,” Wolfe added, pointing to press statements by an agency spokeswoman. “This only adds to the growing impression that DEP works for developers, not the public.”

Back in 2008, Mr. Zaro saw no ethical restraints on using a female friend to provide favors at DEP.

So, it is no surprise that he now sees no problem with Gov. Christie doing the same thing.

(ps – Buried lede alert! You can’t make this stuff up:

To compound the irony, last week the Attorney General directed the Pinelands Commission to adopt a gag order on discussing emails between Commission managers, the Governor’s Office, and Christie Corproate Cronies and fellow members of Choose NJ. The legal basis for that gag order was the exact same provision we filed the complaint on in the Zaro matter,  N.J.S.A. 52:13D-12, specifically Section 25:

• No Department employee shall willfully disclose to any person, whether or not for pecuniary gain, any information not generally available to members of the public which he or she receives or acquires in the course of and by reason of his or her official duties.