For those who criticized the administration of former County Executive Robert Janiszewski, the issue has always been money: how he was able to generate enough every four years to guarantee re-election.
Thus few of Janiszewski’s staunchest critics were surprised when Rep. Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.), the man who took over as Hudson County Democratic leader after Janiszewski’s sudden resignation in September, called for an audit of Democratic finances recently.
Menendez’s action came in reaction to a lawsuit threatened by a longtime Jersey City Democrat who said about $700,000 was not accounted for, leaving the Democratic organization in Hudson County broke.
Particularly in question is the Hudson County Community Fund, an apparently independent financing vehicle to which only Janiszewski had access.
Al Chowanec, one of the oldest Democratic Committee members, who lives in Jersey City, considered filing a lawsuit to discover where money went that was raised during several events held at the Harborside office complex in Jersey City.
"I’ve always been a good soldier and helped raise money for the Democratic Party," he said last week. "When Mr. Janiszewski got into the jam, we found that there was no money."
Chowanec said he talked with several lawyers about filing a lawsuit to determine who the officers were to the Community Fund and where the cash went, as well as thousands of dollars in equipment and a big screen television set used by the fund.
"When Bob [Menendez] decided to pick up on this, I decided to let him run with it." Chowanec said.
Menendez, who became Hudson County Democratic chairman in October, took over for Janiszewski as Democrats scrambled to rebuild leadership.
Janiszewski had resigned suddenly and disappeared in September after being wired by the FBI as a cooperating witness in a sting operation for several months. The FBI is said to be continuing their investigation at the present time.
Janiszewski had started the Community Fund several years ago in order to fund civic causes. Most recently money came from a Winter Ball and a summer boat ride. These events were put on by Janiszewski as fundraisers, but checks – according the Menendez’ office – were made out to the Community Fund instead of the Democratic Committee. Since these occurred at a time when Janiszewski was reportedly wired by the FBI during a sting operation, O’Dea and others suggest the FBI was monitoring donations to the account.
"So if he was raising money for this fund, the FBI had to have known about it," said long time Janiszewski critic Freeholder Bill O’Dea last week. "It sort of gives new meaning to a fishing expedition."
Chowanec said the bulk of the money, possibly as much as $500,000, came from fundraising events held at the Harborside Center in Jersey City.
"The money went into the Community Fund," Chowanec said.
This was unusual, since money from the two annual fundraisers in Hudson County had previously gone into the county’s Democratic account. Messages left at the office of Robert Jackson, Jersey City Democratic municipal chairman, and at the home and office of Geoff Perselay, former chairman of the county’s Democratic finance Committee, were not answered.
Nothing illegal has been determined
According to Menendez’ office, reports of alleged wrongdoing are premature, since the congressman is still seeking an auditor. But it is suspected that Janiszewski may have used the fund as an alternative source to fund his campaign. No one other than Janiszewski had access to the account, and the audit will also seek to determine who the officers were – including the treasurer.
Republican Frank MacCormack of Secaucus, who ran for state senate this year, said he has been a critic of Democratic election financing for years.
"It is clear from this that Janiszewski didn’t trust his own people," MacCormack said.
Chowanec, however, did not jump to conclusions last week. He said he felt that an investigation was needed to determine what the money was used for.
"We have to determine who the treasurer was and who signed off on the checks," he said. "If it is a committee, then who are those people?"
Chowanec said that while he was willing to file suit to find out these answers, he felt Menendez had more clout and could bring the necessary resources to the issue.
"I think he can do a thorough job," he said. "He’ll find out if it was legal or illegal."
MacCormack is not so sure, and claims that federal authorities are missing an opportunity to clean up corruption in the Hudson County Democratic organization.
"They [federal authorities] should have brought in their own CPA to go over all the books," MacCormack said. "I think by letting the Democrats address this, the feds are giving them one big loophole. The feds should shut down the whole operation until they can determine what is going on."
Questions about Janiszewski’s financing nothing new
In running for state Assembly in 1995, Morton Salkind, the former mayor of Marlboro and former Director of the Secaucus Municipal Utilities Authority, claimed there were numerous unanswered questions about how Janiszewski financed his campaigns and the uncomfortably close relationship Janiszewski had with vendors and county-hired professionals.
One area of Salkind’s investigation, during a Democratic primary battle for assembly in the 32nd district, had been engineering and other funds related to the now-defunct concept of a Hudson County Incinerator Authority. He claimed that millions of dollars were funneled into the project during the 1980s when then-Governor Thomas Kean proposed county-run incinerators to handle the growing problem of trash disposal. When the concept ran into conflicts with federal clean air regulations, the idea was abandoned, but Salkind contended that much of the money somehow ended up in Janiszewski’s reelection coffers – a question Salkind spent years attempting to unravel, but failed.
Last month, the FBI did, however, subpoena records from the Hudson County Improvement Authority (a semi-autonomous body that evolved out on the incinerator effort) seeking information related to Janiszewski’s activities.
Over the last six years, O’Dea, as freeholder, has been seeking to dismantle the close relationship between Janiszewski’s office and numerous specific vendors – long before the FBI began its operations here. He said that he and several other freeholders took an active role in seeking to open up the process that would allow other vendors, businesspeople, lawyers and others access to the billions of dollars of business the county conducted.
Over the last year, he said, freeholders wrestled control of many operations from the county executive’s office.
"While we found that the administration found other ways to award contracts to these vendors, we forced more decisions on these matters into the [Freeholder] Contract’s Compliance Committee," O’Dea said. "We chipped away over a number of years at the process that allowed certain vendors to get preferential treatment. It was a long process."
One of the things the freeholders managed to do, O’Dea said, was to require that a list of qualified vendors be maintained. He said that requests for proposals should be issued to everyone on that list. This guaranteed that more people would be aware of various requests for proposals.
He also noted that Freeholder Barry Dugan has pushed for an expanded response time, noting that 10 days from time of advertisement to receipt of bids by the county often did not leave contractors enough time. He said many were discouraged from submitting. One area of concern, O’Dea said, was the ability to disguise a new project as a renewal of an old contract. On numerous occasions the administration presented the freeholders with contract renewals for firms already doing business with the county. But after examining the nature of the work in some of these contracts, freeholders noted that work required under the new contract was substantially increased. Under state law, any contract substantially changed should require a body to seek new proposals. This is something the county’s Contracts Compliance Committee has been watching closely.