Change is Coming. But Not Yet

Cronyism and corruption. These are not words that should ever be associated with public service and yet, too often, they are.

Politicians elected by their fellow citizens to improve the quality of life for their constituents too often end up taking advantage of their office for personal gain.

Taxpayers who believe their hard-earned money is going toward improving schools, roads and public safety instead learn that it is being spent to line the pockets of the connected few.

It does not have to be this way. – Eric Jackson, Opinion piece in the Trenton Times, March 23, 2014

Oh, those long ago days of optimism and innocence. Whatever happened to them?

I know, I keep coming back to this op-ed piece by then-candidate Eric Jackson during last year’s mayoral race. But why not? Mr. Jackson was very bold, emphatic – and very specific – on how he was the best candidate for rescuing Trenton from the ethical morass of corruption into which it had sunk after the four-year purgatory of the Tony Mack Administration.

Turns out that in office, Mr. Jackson has not lived up to this promise. In his first months in office, the Mayor had to deal with some lingering questions concerning his campaign financing and reporting. which indirectly led in September 2014 to the cancellation of a proposed contract with the City of Trenton for a South Jersey law firm one of whose principals had made a major donation to the Mayor’s campaign, after ethical violations by that firm were alleged. The Mayor cleaned up his reporting act for a while, catching up on several overdue finance reports to the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) and returned a contribution to former US Senator turned Trenton developer Robert Torricelli that had exceeded contribution limits.

But that conscientiousness has kind of dropped off. He last filed an ELEC report on November 26, 2014, for the quarter ending September 30 of last year. He has missed four subsequent deadlines for reporting, and is now a full year behind.

Oops.

Mr. Jackson exhibited an odd passivity in the controversy that sprang up in February of this year, when his Police Director Ernest Parrey exerted unusual interest in making sure that a Trenton Police cadet expelled from Mercer County’s Police Academy for cheating was readmitted in violation of the Academy’s own rules. That the cadet in question was the son-in-law of Mr. Jackson’s chief of staff, and that his “recycling” was clearly special treatment didn’t bother Mr. Jackson. The Mayor’s involvement apparently went no further than a quick discussion with Mr. Parrey. According to the Director, “He (the Mayor) questioned if I was comfortable with the decision I made and I said I was.”

That, appaprently, was that. Nothing to see here, let’s move along.

And Mr. Jackson was just fine when it came to public attention that his supposedly “fulltime” Law Director for the City of Trenton was simultaneously “Plainfield’s city solicitor, special counsel in Burlington, and North Plainfield’s municipal prosecutor.” Oh, AND he became a full partner of another NJ law firm doing business under a contract with the City of Trenton that he had been instrumental in landing for the firm.Mayor Jackson said he’d gone over all that and got permission from the State. “They (the State) found it to be legal and ethical. In our discussion on Tuesday, we discussed numerous municipalities working under the same arrangement.”

However, after a few days in the public light, the Mayor terminated the City’s contract with the law firm, DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick and Cole, and Mr. Minchello left at least one of his jobs, the one in Trenton’s City Hall, and went to his partnership at DeCotiis.

Despite his strong stance as a candidate, and his pledge of “Zero Tolerance” toward even the perception of corruption, Eric Jackson has shown a sad and repeated tendency to be myopic when faced with actual occasions of the “cronyism and corruption” he condemned in the Times.

It’s no wonder to me, then, that Mr. Jackson is silent in the middle of what strongly appears to be another instance of special treatment being shown to a potential vendor. I speak of course of the process under way by which the City of Trenton is bending backwards to make sure a small company, working out of a private, rented residence in Columbus, is awarded the contract to manage the city’s Information Technology assets and processes, even though this company’s bid is more expensive than 9 out of the 12 companies which submitted bids to the City. Much more expensive, in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars per year more expensive.

And, to top it all, in spite of the fact that City Council hasn’t yet approved the contract – it’s to hear the matter tomorrow – the Jackson Administration installed this new company as its new vendor this past Monday morning.It will have been on the job for almost an entire week, without authorization.

A done deal, in the eyes of the Administration, no matter what Council may do. Or, to put it less delicately, Council be damned!

The company in question, FCC Consulting Services, appears to be a sole proprietorship owned by Frederick C. Carothers. As described here yesterday, FCC’s proposal for IT services was selected over 11 other companies, even though its bid was more expensive than three-quarters of the field. It’s not clear why that should be the case, since the size of the company would not lead one to think its cost basis and overhead would be that pricy. The experience of the company and its capability is not apparent from looking at its website. Still and all, the City’s (current) Law Director had no hesitation in telling Cristina Rojas of the Times that the large “Bid price is not the defining criteria [for awarding the city’s contract],” McKithen said. “It’s one of many factors that we consider, but we’re looking at the overall best proposal.” What makes this the “best proposal” is still unclear, but we are hearing more today about some of the steps the City has taken over the last couple of months to seemingly ensure that FCC’s was the last proposal standing.

David Foster tells us this morning in the Trentonian that the current bid process is actually the second one undertaken by Trenton in the last couple of months. Foster quotes Jerry Harris, the president of ADPC, the company that had been the City’s vendor for close to 30 years before being dropped in favor of FCC, as saying the reason the first round was abandoned by the city was because FCC’s proposal “had a fatal flaw” that would have resulted in being disqualified. Rather than let that happen, the implication is that the City scheduled a second bidding round to give FCC a second chance.

That’s a serious charge. From the Trentonian’s account, it is hard to draw a conclusion. What kind of evidence is available to shed more light on this?

In the published minutes for City Council’s meeting on September 3, one can read that the matter of the bid process was discussed by Council and the City’s Business Administrator. Jerry Harris spoke before Council as well, asking them to reject all of the proposals because of a badly flawed process. Several Council members complained about a lack of transparency from the Administration surrounding the entire process. The discussion, as summarized in the Minutes, seems quite convoluted and it is unclear exactly what actions are being recommended, and why.

(A DIGRESSION: There was an item on Council’s agenda, Resolution 15-561, which proposed rejecting all of the proposals submitted in the first bidding round. The only action recorded in the Minutes was a motion to table, that is postpone, that Resolution. The vote to table the motion was actually defeated, 1-6. To me that means that the proposals from the first round were never formally and legally rejected. It’s probably moot now, but this is more proof that Trenton’s Council is often confused as it goes about its business!)

The summary sheet prepared by the City’s Purchasing Department is a little more clear. Similar to the one I referred to yesterday, this sheet itemizes the proposals from the 7 companies which bid in that round. All 7, plus 5 more firms, bid in the second round.I’ve excerpted that sheet below, and added up the total 3-year base price for each vendor, not including any numbers for Emergency Overtime.

Notice two things here. First, out of the seven firms which bid, FCC is the most expensive, in both their base price AND emergency hourly rate. And in the line indicating any Fatal Flaw in the application, the entry “NONE” is written for FCC.

Curious. A small, less-experienced firm is the most expensive out of a field of 7 in the first round, the 3rd most out of a field of 12 in the second, and it STILL ends up getting the contract.

We read more about the process in today’s Trentonian. The 9/3 Council minutes state that “Ms. [Member-at-Large Phyllis] Holly-Ward addressed the issue of the possibility of Council members observing the RFP process  without a vote which was suggested by the Law Department. Mr. McEwen agreed.” David Foster reports “that never occurred.” The process of reviewing the proposals was handled by a committee of five City employees. The Committee winnowed the field of 12 companies down to 3 for further review and presentations. Those three were FCC, the most expensive at $2,403,964 per year; ADPC, at $2,349,000; and Ryan Consulting, at $1,704.000.

One more step the committee took was to hire an outside consultant to vet all 12 proposals. According to the Trentonian, that outside consultant – who was paid for only two hours of work – was a Rider University Associate Professor of computer science. Foster reports that the professor “gave a stamp of approval” to FCC’s application, but no further information is given in the piece about what that meant. How much of an evaluation could he have conducted in 2 hours?

However – and this is where the waters get even darker and murkier in this matter – both the principal of FCC, Fredereck Corothers, and BA Terry McEwen, are trustees of Rider University, where Associate (presumably un-tenured) Professor J. Drew Procaccino works.

I’m not suggesting that there is necessarily anything unseemly about this connection. But I am disappointed that the purchasing committee did not make an effort to avoid creating the awkward situation this has become. Mr. Harris has taken up the Rider connection and is swinging it for all it’s worth in the papers. He is likely to also do so in the courts. And if there isn’t anything actually improper about this Rider connection, it is helping to focus more attention on this whole matter. Who knows what else may come out of this?

Well, actually, I do. A little bit. I am finding out more information about Mr. Corothers and FCC, as well as prior entities owned by him over the last several years and their business status, that concerns me quite a bit. The more I find out, the less credible I judge the City’s defense of this process to be. Let’s review. Briefly. Honest!

1. FCC is one of 7 companies that bids for the City’s business in a first round of proposals this summer. It submitted what is without question the most expensive proposal. It is also, arguably, a fatally flawed proposal.
2. That round of proposals is junked. A second round is held, this time generating 12 proposals. FCC’s is the third most expensive. In a process that BA McEwen had agreed in public session to include City Council members in deliberations – after Council members complained about the lack of transparency in this first bid round – FCC is selected without any Council participation, and before Council even awards a contract to the company starts work!
3. This process included the proposals of three companies. Over the three-year life of the contract, FCC will cost Trenton and NJ taxpayers nearly $164,892 MORE than ADPC, and $2,099,892 MORE than Ryan Consulting, the other two finalists.
4. The company that has won this bid operates out of a rented personal residence, without the kind of visible, costly overhead that would justify higher costs than its competitors.
5. The principal of the company that has won this bid sits on the same university Board as the City’s Business Administrator.
6. A consultant hired by the City to vet these proposals is an Associate Professor at the same university.
7. The previous vendor, who has worked for the City for nearly 30 years – and who brought and won a lawsuit against the City 4 years ago on almost identical grounds – charges “Collusion” and other improprieties.

Huh. Any wonder why this whole matter seems suspicious?

This matter has become one more item to add to the list of very questionable actions taken so far by the Jackson Administration, in spite of Eric Jackson’s adamant insistence that his would be The Ethical Administration.

In March 2014, he wrote,

I am challenging all of our residents to take responsibility for our community, to help me clean up City Hall and to root out corruption. As citizens, we must take ownership of our government and not leave it up to others to do.

City Hall belongs to each one of us who lives in this city — the homeowner, the renter, the senior citizen and the young parent.

He also wrote,

Change begins with each one of us, and it is coming to Trenton.

Change may yet be coming.

Based on this deal, though, it’s still a long way off.