Blaming “negative publicity” – and ignoring all of the other issues and questions that had surrounded the issue for the last week – Atlantic City law firm Cooper Levenson CEO Lloyd Levenson today withdrew from its contract with the City of Trenton.
Good!
What Mr. Levenson refers to as “negative publicity” are the multiple questions surrounding this contract: dicey campaign contributions, a mysterious “non-fundraiser” event held on behalf of then-candidate Tony Mack in Linwood last June, the role Mr. Levenson and others played in Mack’s mayoral transition and into his Administration.
These questions have still not been answered. Cooper Levenson’s withdrawal may leave one tempted to think the matter is moot, but as I argued over the weekend, we still don’t know what this law firm worked on over the last few months or how much of the contracted $50,000 was spent. The same is also true of the other firm the City hired in October, Florio Perucci.
While our attention is still on the matter, I think it is still a good opportunity for City Council to look into these questions. I hope they do.
UPDATE – There is word this afternoon that tonight’s City Council meeting has been canceled.
That’s too bad. That means we won’t have a chance to get an answer to any of these questions today.
Given how frequently New Problems and New Crises come up in this town to steal our attention, I hope we have an opportunity to air this whole situation out before the next distraction comes along!
If City Council doesn’t get to it, it would be a good bet to say, though, that someone else will before too long. The state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission, the Mercer County Prosecutor, the State Attorney General, or others. I’ll bet they will still be interested in all this business.
Don’t go away!