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Mayor ALBIO SIRES AND HIS FRIENDS

Published April 11 in the Asbury Park Press

By TOM TRONCONE
STAFF WRITER

If you want a no-bid town contract in West New York, it pays to have a friend in town hall, especially if that friend is Mayor Albio Sires, who is also the speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly.

In West New York, Sires is the king of pay-to-play, the practice of rewarding major campaign contributors with no-bid contracts, a Gannett New Jersey newspapers' investigation shows.

Sires, in his role as the Democratic leader of the state's lower house, has personally blocked comprehensive pay-to-play reform from passing the Assembly for more than a year. . . .

A Gannett review of contracts and campaign contributions showed that nearly all professional appointees and companies awarded no-bid contracts gave thousands of dollars each to Sires' various political funds. . . .

• Contributors to the Sires-controlled West New York Municipal Democratic Committee, or WNYMDC, were paid $4.5 million in taxpayer money through no-bid contracts from 2000 through March 2004.
  For example, Assistant Town Attorney Joseph Mariniello Sr. contributed $19,750 to Sires' political funds from 2000 to 2003. He and his Fort Lee firm, Mariniello and Mariniello, received more than $640,000 in West New York business from 2000 to March 2004. Mariniello is paid a town salary of $77,747 and receives health benefits.
• Most professional appointees, some of whom are on the West New York payroll, have contributed to Sires' political funds since he became mayor in 1995. They have given more than $350,000 to the WNYMDC through last year.
• Beyond the contributions from professional appointees, more than 100 town and board of education employees contributed more than $200,000 to Sires' WNYMDC from 1999 through 2003.
• Sires appointed the son of a large contributor, who is also a friend, to a $35,000-a-year job as a commissioner on the State Commission of Investigation. Among the independent state agency's duties is to investigate government corruption and waste.
• Two companies that were contributors to the WNYMDC were cited in a 2001 town audit as receiving no-bid contracts above the legal threshold. The town since has changed its bidding process, and about 85 percent of its contracts are now put out to bid.
  The mayor dismisses questions about the role political contributions play in awarding no-bid contracts to professionals, such as Town Attorney George Campen, a golfing buddy of Sires.

No changes at local level

Sires, owner of A.M. Title Agency Inc., Union, has prospered politically from his friends' generosity over the years. They have streamed hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaigns and political committees -- money he's used to expand his influence throughout the state.

As speaker, Sires is paid $65,333 a year. He also is paid $15,000 a year as the West New York mayor and receives health benefits.

He is one of 14 legislators who also serves as a mayor. There are 120 members in the Legislature.

In his position as speaker of the Assembly, Sires can control what happens to pay-to-play reform. He alone decides whether the 80 house members can vote on any bill, and is one of the two most powerful men in the Legislature. State Sen. Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, controls the Senate as its president. Last year, Codey and the Senate voted unanimously in favor of comprehensive pay-to-play reform and sent the bill to the Assembly, where it died in committee. . . .

A little help for his friends

Government watchdogs question the relationship between Sires and the town's professional appointees.

"If you see virtually everybody who is getting a professional contract giving to the campaign, then I think it does at least raise appearance problems and raises questions about what type of connection there is between the contributions and getting the contracts," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, a nonprofit good-government group.

Sires not only controls the West New York Municipal Democratic Committee but several re-election committees and the New Democratic Assembly Leadership political committee. As speaker, Sires directs which candidates get an almost unlimited amount of campaign funds through the leadership committee.

With Sires at the helm, the WNYMDC has raised more than $2 million, more than $250,000 of which was eventually moved into Sires' campaign funds, according to election records.

He was first elected to the Assembly in 1999 and has been re-elected twice. He has been mayor since 1995 and was re-elected to that post in 1999 and 2003.

According to West New York financial records and data from the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, friends of Sires who have benefited from pay-to-play in West New York include:

• The law firm of Town Attor-ney George Campen -- whom Sires called a longtime friend -- which gave $19,250 in contributions to Sires' political funds from 2000 through 2003. Campen's partner, Gregory Farmer, is the town's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board prosecutor. During the same period, the law firm of Farmer and Campen, Union City, received $602,718 in legal work from the town. Campen is paid a salary of $80,153, and Farmer is paid $10,000. Neither receives health benefits.
• Attorney David Corrigan, individually and with his former law partner, Robert Murray, contributed more than $22,000 to Sires' political funds from 2000 through 2003. Corrigan and Murray are labor attorneys for the town, and their law firms were paid more than $305,000 for legal work. Neither Corrigan nor Murray is paid a town salary.
• Lisa & Associates, which served as town auditors until 2002, contributed $10,000 to the WNYMDC from 2000 through 2003, and received $324,000 in business from the town. The firm's principal, Gerard Lisa, pleaded guilty in July to making corrupt payments to former Hudson County Executive Robert C. Janiszewski to maintain its county auditing contract.
• Carr, Daley, Sullivan & Weir of Jersey City, which replaced Lisa & Associates as West New York's auditors last year, contributed more than $26,000 to the mayor's political funds from 2000 through 2003, and were paid $264,000 for town business.
• The law firm of Netchert, Hillmann & Dineen, Jersey City, which handles the town's workers' compensation cases, contributed $14,500 to Sires' political funds from 2000 through 2003. The firm got $190,000 in legal work from the town from 2000 through March 2004. Sires said William Netchert is a longtime friend.
• Two architectural firms, Ana Galvan & Associates and Rivardo, Schnitzer & Capazzi, contributed $10,250 and $21,200, respectively, to Sires' political funds from 2000 through 2003. The Ana Galvan firm received $349,049 in work from the town, and the Rivardo firm was paid $419,323 from 2000 through March 2004.
  Sires says the appointments, which are approved by the town's commission members, are not influenced by campaign contributions. . . .

Donor's son gets SCI post

Joseph Mariniello Sr., the assistant town attorney who served as the treasurer for the WNYMDC in the late 1990s, praised Sires as "one of those unique government officials who are not out for themselves." He said he put money behind Sires' early, unsuccessful campaigns for mayor and handed out political leaflets with two of his sons.

One son, Joseph Mariniello Jr., a 34-year-old attorney and partner in his father's law firm, was appointed by Sires in March 2002 as one of four SCI commissioners at a salary of $35,000 a year.

Mariniello Sr. said the appointment stemmed from Sires' familiarity with the younger Mariniello. The nearly $20,000 in contributions made by Joseph Sr. to Sires' political funds did not influence the appointment, the father said.

In the SCI position, Mariniello Jr. helps decide what government problems the investigative body tackles. The commission has no law enforcement powers, but forwards its findings to the state attorney general's office for possible criminal charges.

The four commissioners of the SCI are each political appointees -- two by the governor and one each by the Senate president and Assembly speaker.

"I don't think there is any standard for appointments," Mariniello Jr. said. "I've known Albio personally for probably 15 years, since before he was mayor. He was and is a family friend."

Sires said he sees no problem appointing to the state's investigative commission the son of one of his largest campaign contributors. . . .

Bidding rules violated

An audit of West New York conducted for the fiscal year 2001 by Lisa & Associates found that the town violated the state's competitive bidding process by giving no-bid contracts that exceeded the legal limit to three vendors.

One of the vendors, Royal Printing Services, West New York, has been a significant WNYMDC contributor. Royal Printing received $38,895 in no-bid contracts from West New York in 2001, more than double the legal limit of $17,500.

Ralph Passante, owner of Royal Printing Services, said he was not aware his company was cited in the auditor's report. Passante said he contributes to Sires' political funds because of the way Sires' administration has turned around the town.

"I see the change in this town since this man has taken over," Passante said. "There is a different atmosphere. . . . When you are in a town and see constructive things going on, whether I get a dollar's worth of business or not, if a person does a good job, they should be rewarded."

Since Sires took office in 1995, Royal Printing has contributed $10,500 to Sires' political funds, according to state election filings. . . .

"This is classic -- the definition of -- pay-to-play, when people who have jobs and contracts with a municipality then give campaign contributions to the political party of the municipality," said Assemblyman William E. Baroni, a first-term Republican from Mercer County who proposed an ethics reform package in March that included a comprehensive ban on pay-to-play.