THE NEW YEAR has started as an eye-popping year for the residents of Bergen County, who have been burdened by escalating county taxes over the past decade.
Recent revelations about county government agencies and their spending are an indictment of the malfeasance at One Bergen Plaza. That is perhaps more horrifying than the conviction of two Bergen County officials last year. The malfeasance reeks of the arrogance with which Democrats have managed to run the county to benefit a select few.
Two newly-elected Republicans took their oaths of office Wednesday evening to become the first members of their party to serve on the Bergen County Freeholder Board in three years.
Republicans Robert Hermansen, of Mahwah, and John Driscoll, of Paramus, both said that their first priority will be to push for stricter laws on pay-to-play and the bidding of public contracts.
BOB YUDIN is right. This week, the chairman of the Bergen County Republican Organization called on incoming state Attorney General Paula Dow to investigate the Bergen County Improvement Authority.
Yudin was responding to Tuesday's in-depth report in The Record on the Improvement Authority's loan program.
The county touted its Municipal Banc as an easy way for municipalities to get cash fast. It was almost instant credit — not a good thing for taxpayers living in small towns, some run by people cozy with the same county officials pushing the fast loans. Municipalities could borrow money without specifying what they needed to purchase. Several towns borrowed money they did not use. Meanwhile, they had to make payments on the unneeded loans. The debt mounted like uncollected trash.
CHAIRMAN SAYS HE WILL ASK NEW ATTORNEY GENERAL TO EXAMINE THE ACTIONS OF THE BCIA
Record Article Raises Questions About Shadowy Agency
December 29, 2009
Thom Ammirato 973-403-7836
HACKENSACK, NJ – Fourteen months ago the Bergen County Republican Organization called for an investigation into the operations of the Bergen County Improvement Authority. Today - on the heels of a blistering expose of the authority by the Record newspaper – county Republican Party Chairman Robert Yudin is calling upon the new attorney general to examine the BCIA’s money lending operations.
"The BCIA represents the kind of abuse of government authority that has become rampant in New Jersey and that voters rejected on November 3," said Yudin. "The BCIA and other independent authorities in this state are used to reward political donors with huge piles of public money. Hopefully, with a new administration taking office next month, the state can begin to unravel the complicated schemes that operate in the dark at the taxpayers’ expense.
"I will formally ask the incoming attorney general to put the resources of her office to work investigating the actions of the BCIA," said Yudin.
In October 2008, the BCRO under Yudin completed its own investigation into lending by the BCIA. The research showed the BCIA generated more than $4 million in bonding fees to big donors to the county, state and national Democratic organizations.
"We said it before and we will continue to say it: The BCIA is a runaway train whose primary purpose is to support the corrupt Bergen County Democratic Organization by making questionable loans in order to churn out millions of dollars in fees for major donors to the county Democratic machine," said Yudin.
Today’s Record article details the actions of the municipal bank created by the BCIA to loan money to municipalities that would otherwise bond for big purchases.
The article notes, however, that the bank was abused by local governments run mostly by Democrats. The Record reports that some towns borrowed more than they needed and others paid interest on money they did not use for years, while the lender used by the BCIA collected more than $1.1 million in interest.
The Record also reports that the loans were processed without towns filling out why they wanted the money – leaving blank spaces on the applications. All of these loans escaped public scrutiny. The Record also noted that the BCIA paid $1.8 million in consultant fees to firms and individual that donated $450,000 to the Bergen Democrats from 2004 through 2008.
BCRO REPORT
In the fall of 2008 Yudin and the then Republican candidates for freeholder had called for greater transparency in the BCIA bonding program which over the course of six-and-a-half years churned out over $4.2 million in fees to a list of lawyers, auditors and financial consultants who donate heavily to the BCDO and other Democratic organizations. Among those benefitting from the BCIA fees was convicted felon and BCDO attorney Dennis Oury, who made $128,000 in fees from the BCIA from 2003 to mid-2008.
Yudin had also noted the strong arm tactics used by Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney to try to get municipalities and school boards to take loans through the BCIA.
"The arm twisting that has occurred to pressure towns and school boards to deal with the BCIA raises innumerable ethical issues," said Yudin.
MORE THAN PAY TO PLAY
Responding to a published comment from McNerney, who defended the BCIA lending, and admonished its critics as "tired old cynics" who are harping on the pay-to-play connections between the loans and Democratic Party donors, Yudin said: "The actions of the BCIA go well beyond simply pay-to-play. This is a systematic and determined effort by county officials to use a shadowy authority to encourage reckless borrowing and to generate huge taxpayer funded fees from that borrowing."
While BCIA supporters say the agency is indispensible, Yudin said the BCRO research shows it is not. Of 22 BCIA bond issues made from 2002 to mid 2008, 11 of them have gone to either county government or various arms of county government, including two $65 million loans to the Bergen County Utilities Authority in Little Ferry. Those loans generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to firms that donate heavily the Democratic Party.