Yesterday was a mixed bag. On the up side (for me anyway!) the SF Giants played a great game against the Phillies yesterday afternoon. This NLCS is for me a better series of games than the World Series is likely to be. There’s still a lot of baseball yet to play between the Phillies and Giants; this can go either way. The Giants need to put together a consistent offense to capitalize on the great pitching staff they have this October. But so far I am pretty pleased with the way this is going (don’t count your sourdough loaves or Anchor Steams quite yet, Mr. Hogan). I figure I am one of a very, very small number of people around here who are rooting for the Giants over the Phils. What can I say?
So the Giants won yesterday, 3-0. In Trenton, I feel we lost a double-header, 4-3. City Council granted two contracts, totaling $100,000, for legal services to two NJ law firms politically connected to the Mack Administration. Prior to the vote, as the article in this morning’s Trentonian describes, I spoke to Council and asked a few questions about the proposed deals. A few members of Council picked up on those questions and addressed them to Lloyd Levenson, the CEO of Atlantic City-based Cooper Levenson, which was one of the two firms selected last night.
Cooper Levenson, along Florio Perruchi, has worked for the City over the last few years on specialized legal matters such as Workers Compensation cases. Both firms last night admitted they were seeking to broaden their work with Trenton to cover more general and non-specialized work. Work that one would have thought the City’s own in-house legal department could do, either with their current 4-person complement or with temporary hires. One would think that, but you would be wrong.To his credit, Mr. Levenson did answer most of the questions he was asked. But I was not satisfied with his response to one matter.
I raised the issue to Council of whether his role as Chair of the Mayor’s Inaugural Ball might trigger the provisions of our city’s Pay-to-Play Ordinance. Mr. Levenson replied that neither he nor his firm had purchased any tickets to the Ball. He also said “I did not solicit for tickets.”
That claim strikes me as very odd. Take a look at the invitation to that Ball, which was mailed to prospective guests and still appears on the Mayor’s campaign website. Right under the Great Seal of the City of Trenton we read “Chairman Lloyd D. Levenson and The Mayor’s Inaugural Committee request the honor of your presence at the Inaugural Ball.” Which presence can only be made to happen by buying a ticket from the Mr. Mack’s campaign committee.
Maybe I haven’t lived in New Jersey long enough, but how is using your own personal name, and the reputation behind it, to invite people to send money to a political campaign committee NOT a solicitation? Am I missing something here?
I read the City’s Pay-to-Play Ordinance and it reads pretty clearly that the City may not enter into a contract “with any professional business entity if any such entity has solicited or made any contribution (as such term is defined at N.J.A.C. 19:25.1.7 which definition includes loans, pledges and in-kind contributions)” to any candidate. I look at the Invitation and the language of the Ordinance again, and this just doesn’t feel right. Mr. Levenson defends his role as Chair as largely symbolic and ceremonial. Yet his name on those invitations in the mail and on the Mayor’s website lent his reputation and credibility led to ticket sales. Those weren’t symbolic or ceremonial sales, were they?
I am not convinced that the role of Mr. Levenson in soliciting people to attend the Mayor’s Inaugural Ball doesn’t violate the spirit if not the letter of the strict Pay-to-Play ordinance I thought we had in Trenton. I recall last Spring that two candidates in the election came under fire from our city’s then Special Counsel for supposed violations of the ordinance. The firm Borden Perlman lost a city contract for its contributions.
Those were direct contributions to candidates, to be sure, rather than the indirect solicitation in this case. But both appear to me to be prohibited under our Ordinance. Is there any lawyer out there with expertise on this who may be able to clarify for me why Borden Perlman loses its contract while Cooper Levenson gets one?
In any case, we saw last night the emergence on this Council of an apparent Bloc of four members who will now willingly revisit and reconsider past votes when invited to by the Administration. Do-overs are now the order of the day. Seems to me those Council members and this Mayor ran on promises to end politics-as-usual and improve transparency in city business. Oh well, so much for that!
I do want to single out and thank Council members Muschal, Chester, and Caldwell-Wilson for their votes last night, and their consistency during this process. Let’s see where we go from here.
Giants in 6.
“By golly, he’s onto something!”