Just as the national Republicans have defiled their brand, Bergen County Dems have defiled theirs.

The Englewood Report recommends leaving ballots blank unless the candidates have credibly declared their independence from the pay-to-play racket being run by the Bergen County Democratic Organization.  We endorse  Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, Dr. Dierdre Glenn Paul (4th Ward Council) and Charlotte Bennet Schoen (2nd Ward Council).  

The mudslinging, framing and bogus talking points emanating from Boss Ferriero's BCDO Machine are a desperate attempt to preserve their destructive, self-serving business plan.  Hence, they seek to wound anyone who threatens their racket of using your money to fund the web of patronage jobs, favors, no-bid contracts and fees that enrich and advance themselves at your expense.  The public interest cannot be served well until those who divert our public resources to themselves and their cronies are eliminated.

It is time for voters not be suckered by those who have hijacked their Party's brand.

With major contributions from former Mayor Sandy Greenberg.

The opening years of the twenty-first century in the City of Englewood have been a period of unprecedented building construction and also of significant political change. Figuring in both of these interrelated phenomena is the looming figure of Bergen County political boss Joseph Ferriero and his need to control megabuck development decisions in Englewood for the benefit of his law client, developer S. Hekemian Kasparian Troast LLC (HKT). The political change has been the slowly growing awareness of the Englewood electorate that certain of their elected officials were not representing them, but had become part of the powerful pay-to-play County political machine led by Ferriero. Efforts to replace those officials have by now been largely successful, but, unfortunately, the barn door may have been open too long, and we may be paying for decades for the irresponsible giveaways that have been approved.

There was good sense in the City administration’s plans as the new century started to permit denser development in our underutilized industrial area in southeast Englewood. The rationale was to reverse the declining proportion of tax revenues provided by the industrial area, and thereby to benefit residential taxpayers. Office construction, in particular, was to be encouraged, since the ratio of tax income to additional municipal expense is normally most favorable for this type of development. Where residential construction was included in mixed-use projects, condominiums should be stressed rather than rental apartments, since tax revenues from condos are significantly higher than from rental facilities. The idea was to plan for the long-term financial health of Englewood. Unfortunately, as time went on, short-term considerations, the financial needs of the developer, and the political needs of our leaders, have repeatedly been allowed to override the long-term interests of the community. Pleading an inability to sell office space, the developer has yet to build or even apply for such construction.

In 2001, HKT proposed to develop a major site in Englewood’s industrial area south of Route 4, and received the support of the City Council for their plan. The original plan, the largest ever proposed in the County, was for a large office, hotel and residential project. The City created a new redevelopment zone to accommodate the plan. It, however, received opposition from industrial property owners who objected to losing their land under eminent domain, and from citizens in neighboring Leonia, from which the property would have been accessed. In addition, there was already concern in some quarters over the close relationship which some Englewood Council members enjoyed with Bergen County boss Joseph Ferriero, whose law firm represented HKT. The plan, including the redevelopment area ordinance itself, was eventually invalidated by the courts on a legal technicality. 9/11 happened, and the developer, Ferriero, and his Englewood allies, went back to the drawing board.

Ferriero’s Englewood allies were First Ward Councilman Doug Bern, Fourth Ward Councilman Jack Drakeford, and, until his term expired at the end of 2003, Mayor Paul Fader, who made appointments to and served on the Planning Board. With significant opposition to development yet to emerge, they had little difficulty in obtaining Council or Planning Board approval for whatever measures were desired by HKT/Ferriero. The only thorn in Ferriero’s side was the Englewood Democratic Municipal Committee, under the leadership of Violet Cherry, which refused to take orders from him.

In 2003, the Municipal Committee selected Dr. Earl Marsan, a dentist, an African-American, and a 20-year member of the Englewood Board of Health, to run for the position of Councilman-At-Large. His name was submitted by the Committee Chair Cherry, to County Chair Ferriero, who under the law must designate the official Party candidate. Ferriero, claiming he had been so requested by Fader, Bern and Drakeford, endorsed instead Vernon Walton, a clergyman, also African-American, and a two-year resident, with a scant voting record. Ferriero then telephoned Marsan demanding that he withdraw, and when Marsan refused he berated him. A hard-fought primary battle ensued, which Walton, with heavy support from the County leadership, plus Congressman Rothman (but not from then County Freeholder and now State Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle), won. The developer, through an intermediary, gave $4500 to the PAC of Senator John Lynch (former Trenton power broker later convicted and jailed for corruption). The PAC, entitled New Directions for Democrats, made a similar donation to Walton’s Council campaign, which used "New Directions for Democrats" as its campaign slogan. Why was this election so important to Ferriero that he would override for the first time in memory the choice of a local party organization? Because he needed his three-vote majority on the five-person Englewood City Council, and he could not count on either Third Ward Councilman Scott Reddin or then Second Ward Councilman Michael Wildes (see below for Wildes’ later change of heart).

With the the Ferriero faction having maintained control, the City changed tactics and amended its Zoning Ordinance to permit "Planned Unit Development" (PUD) in the industrial area both north and south of Route 4. The PUD concept is to combine residential, office and commercial development. Under the new PUD rules, HKT submitted a plan to the Planning Board for a sizable project in the north of Route 4 adjoining the Crown Plaza Hotel property. Having been given one concession after another, a dense largely rental residential development was approved, without immediate office construction being required, and it is presently near completion.

Following this approval, HKT returned to the Planning Board with an amended version of the original project south of Route 4, similarly enabled by the PUD rules. Known as Flatrock Square, it included an office building, an 8-story hotel, 399 residential units and a parking deck. After numerous hearings before the Planning Board, during which HKT resisted the office building requirement, an agreement was reached in August, 2005. Wildes, by now Mayor, negotiated the agreement privately and presented it to the Board as a fait accompli, triggering the resignation of highly regarded Planning Board Chair Hilary Ballon. The agreement essentially provided that construction of the office building and the hotel could be delayed indefinitely, in exchange for which the residential units would be offered as condominiums instead of rental units.

In June, 2005, Ferriero’s power began, for the first time, to slip. First Ward Councilman Doug Bern was defeated in the Democratic Primary by Ken Rosenzweig, with Bern’s Ferriero affiliation having been well aired to the voters. In January, 2006, Rosenzweig took his seat on the City Council and Ferriero’s majority control ended.

Ferriero’s next move was to form an alliance with Mayor Michael Wildes, who had previously, as Councilman and Mayor, been unaligned. The significance of this alliance was (and is) dual. First, Wildes has appointed persons to the Planning Board who are mostly willing to do his bidding, and he is thus able to negotiate with Ferriero, or anyone else, from a position of strength. This was so especially since the Council had until recently effectively abdicated much of its authority over major development to the Planning Board. Second, Englewood’s Charter gives the Mayor the seldom-used power of veto over Council actions, which can only be overridden by 4 votes. The Mayor, with two allies, thus could consistently thwart the actions of a Council majority.

Now we come to 2006, with Walton’s three-year term, as well as Mayor Wildes’, drawing to a close. It was evident to anyone understanding the Englewood political scene that a truly extraordinary candidate and a strong campaign would be needed to defeat Walton’s machine backed candidacy in the June Primary. When that extraordinary candidate emerged in the person of State Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, the battle was joined. Johnson had been appalled by the events we have discussed, and was willing to add the thankless and neglibly paid ($5000 per annum) office of Councilman to his impressive resume in law enforcement and government, only out of concern for the City where he had lived most of his life. Wildes supported Walton, at first behind the scenes, having assured Johnson of his neutrality, and at the last moment out front with a recorded phone message. Johnson was elected and is now serving as one of four council members not under Ferriero’s thumb and striving to undo the damage done by their predecessors. Walton was appointed by Wildes to the Planning Board.

There are two more chapters in 2007 to this story. The Flatrock Square development was finally given a go ahead by the Wildes-dominated Planning Board earlier this year, after the office and hotel portions, and also the requirement that the residential units be designed and sold as condos, were eliminated . The newly constituted City Council then had to step in to renegotiate the agreement with the developer to include a guaranteed level of property taxes to the municipality.

The other chapter is the unsuccessful effort by Wildes ally and Planning Board Chair Marvin Anhalt to unseat anti-Ferriero Second Ward Councilwoman Charlotte Bennett Schoen in the June Democratic Primary this year. Anhalt had just presided over the aforementioned tax giveaway to HKT, while Schoen, also City Council President, had just presided over the Council’s effort to repair the damage, so logically Schoen’s victory should not have been as close as it was.

And now we have Ferriero, who plainly has no shame about abusing the political system and getting rich in the process, demanding that Gordon Johnson resign from one of his two hardly lucrative public jobs. It is plain that the boss does not like challenges to his authority and that he will stoop at little to punish those who attempt to do so.

We need public services. And we need people and contractors to supply them. And that can be costly. And the public unions and private contractors are not the problem.  After all, people in the public sector have as much entitlement to personal ambition as those in the private.  Why blame them for getting the best deals for themselves?  But, if you want to know why your state and local taxes are going up and up – and will get worse exponentially – you owe it to yourself to check out The Record series on the pay and benefits of our state's 500,000 public employees.

The balance of power between the bill payers (you, the taxpayer) and the powerful, politically connected payees (public employee unions, pay-to-play contractors and developers, patronage jobholders, insiders) has been radically skewed.  Those entrusted with representing you in negotiations with service providers have a conflict of interest.  Our pay-to-play system allows politicians to use our public money to reward campaign donors. County political parties are the buffers for the transaction.

All politicians need organized support and money so they can fund their campaigns and careers. Unlike most of us, unions, contractors and political organizations are organized and supply the predictable support/money needed.  No one gets something for nothing.  The players know the game and profit from the political system without much interference from the vast number of us, the citizens, who are unengaged. In point of fact, it appears that we "normal people" pay NOT TO PLAY. We want to go on with our private lives.  We don't want to deal with the messiness, ugliness, turmoil and difficulties of the public sphere, so we outsource that stuff. And we hope that everything, from law enforcement to bridge safety, is well stewarded on autopilot.   But, from the national level to the local, that bit of citizen naivete continues to drain the public treasury as it subverts the public interest and puts us at risk.

Here in pay-to-play New Jersey, county political party organizations like County Boss Ferriero's BCDO, connect the private players to public money. County machine candidates get generous funding from County bosses who, according to state law,  can legally collect way more than any candidate (17 times more per donor!). The pay-to-play quid pro quo occurs when the elected machine politicians give the shirt off YOUR back to their "friends" by means of no-bid public contracts and favorable employment packages from your public treasury. This continues unopposed as voter/taxpayers seem disengaged and distracted.  Evidence?  The latest Quinnipiac poll reveals that voters care more about their latest property tax rebates than the corruption that hijacks their money and causes the problem.

The budgetary crisis has evolved gradually.  Years ago, when public wages were lower than those in the private sector, benefits and pensions were an enticement to prospective employees.  Now that public sector wages have more than caught up to the average taxpayer's income, these benefit enticements seem carved in stone  even as the costs for them have skyrocketed exponentially.

At this time, taxpayers seem more apathetic than upset.  But, without an organized demand for systemic change (like public financing of elections), politically plundered public budgets and the taxes that fund them will become unsustainable. How serious is the situation?  When the Governor would rather sell state assets like the NJ Turnpike than discipline the system, you know we're in trouble.

Next time: Public funding of elections

In February, we noted a report received from State education officials commending the Englewood Public School District for progress in achieving the goals of desegregation and educational improvement. In April, we noted evidence that State officials view Englewood as a "laboratory of sorts, in that successes achieved here may be replicated elsewhere." The State is in fact monitoring progress in the District on a six-month schedule, and its August report, recently released, remains complimentary.

The new report, 17 pages long, focuses on the steps which have been taken to integrate Dwight Morrow High School with the Academies@Englewood. The combined schools (referred to in the report as DMAE) now have one principal, Jim Smith. They held on June 22, 2007, a unified graduation ceremony, attended by local, county and state leaders, with a "sense of making history and contributing to a brighter future for the community and the students served." As of this fall all incoming ninth graders are enrolled in one of a number of "learning community specializations," several of which have direct links with colleges or other outside institutions.

In addition to a more rigorous curriculum in the combined high school, the report lists steps which have been taken to better prepare middle school students for the new challenges, extensive programs in the area of staff development, and special measures to meet the needs of Spanish-speaking families. It concludes "The Englewood Public School District is positioned to emerge as a state and national model for school reform."

With regard to the report Englewood Schools Superintendent Carol Lisa has commented at our request as follows:

This is an important educational event in the City of Englewood. The October 3 report by Commissioner Lucille Davy strengthens our resolve that partnerships between experienced educators who understand the challenges of whole school reform is a win-win for the children.

The District's comprehensive reform effort was designed in February 2002. My administrative team, in partnership with the NJDOE and strong committed Board members, have kept pace with a sequential educational plan that we believe would garner the kind of changes that now serve the District and will continue to do so in the future. Residents of Englewood and choice families now have, in the Englewood Public School District, educational options that they have not had in the past. New residents need not seek educational alternatives beyond what our school district can offer. When the Commissioner states that other learning communities can take the lead from us, she is correct.

We are challenged in meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks. Last year, 100% of the senior class applied to colleges by December. We want every student to be expertly prepared to perform at the highest levels in the secondary and post-secondary arenas. We are not there yet, but we are determined to get there.

The District recently partnered with Bergenfield, Teaneck, Hackensack and Fairleigh Dickinson to seek ways and means to share services and expertise. This direction is supported and encouraged by the Commissioner and our collective Board of Educations.

I am grateful to the Board for supporting the educational agenda my administrative team set forth and for having the fortitude, the foresight and the commitment to have the Englewood Public Schools become an educational force second to none in Bergen County.