East Norriton’s own NY-23, Part 2 November 10 2009
As I find out more about the East Norriton’s supervisor race I originally posted about here, I become more and more puzzled about this “old fashioned campaigning” article that appeared in Saturday’s Times Herald. A quick perusal of the campaign finance records for winners Harris Dainoff and John Zurzola reflects a campaign well financed by union interests.
Zurzola and Dainoff combined raised about $30,000 for their bid for the “powerful” East Norriton Supervisor slot. I am not in any way suggesting that unions should not be permitted to donate to political campaigns. However, it is interesting that with the limited campaign finance records I have, on Zurzola’s report alone, I was able to identify some $6,100 in donated from 13 different unions. Unions that would, presumably, all have jobs building the new Einstein Hospital.
It is also noteworthy that a New Jersey-based engineer, Thomas Beach, Jr., donated $1,000 to Dainoff’s and Zurzola’s bids for supervisor. The engineering firm of Mr. Beach, Remington, Vernick and Beach, raised eyebrows in Pittsburgh back in February of 2008 when some local municipalities suddenly dropped their long-time engineering firms and hired Remington, Vernick and Beach. From the PPG:
“When I asked for a proposal all I got was a rate sheet with the costs plus 10 percent,” Moon commissioner Marvin Eicher said at the time.
When Robinson switched engineering firms Feb. 11, it was done on a 3-2 vote amidst charges that the information provided was sketchy and the move seemed pre-determined.
The firm hired was Remington, Vernick & Beach. It replaced Lennon Smith Souleret, which had served the township for 16 years.
The move so disgusted Commissioner Jerry Brouker that he walked out of the meeting. He said he believed the hiring had been decided before the board even talked, and said that “right and reason went out the window tonight.”
In both cases, the three voting for the contract were Democrats, and the two voting against were Republicans. In neither case was anyone critical of Lennon Smith Souleret; both board chairmen said the move was made to save money.
In neighboring Kennedy, meanwhile, the HRG engineer that had served the township left the firm to take another job last summer. Kennedy, which is heavily Democratic, dropped HRG and hired Remington, Vernick & Beach.
Coincidence? Perhaps. The Philadelphia-based firm recently opened a Pittsburgh office and is aggressively looking for work. Its parent firm, New Jersey-based Remington & Vernick, is a large firm with a long list of awards and projects to its name. And in Robinson at least, its proposal really was the lowest in terms of dollars and cents.
But Michael Vennum isn’t buying it. A failed candidate for Robinson commissioner, he does believe that money was a factor — but thinks it’s more about money contributed to statewide Democratic candidates.
“It’s curious to me how a New Jersey-based firm comes into Pennsylvania, starts contributing bucketloads of cash to statewide campaigns and now is getting work here,” Mr. Vennum said.
And the firm does indeed make heavy contributions, and primarily on the Democratic side in high-profile Pennsylvania races.
(…)
There are two ways to look at that.
On the bright side, the firm boasts of having friends in government, which can help it obtain grants for its clients and can help streamline the regulatory process. “Mr. Remington himself said they were well-connected politically,” Mr. Brouker said.
On the dark side, it smacks of a practice called “pay for play,” in which professional firms fill political coffers and get government work in return.
Such activity is legal unless there is a direct quid pro quo — an agreement ahead of time that a contract will be given in exchange for a contribution — but has become enough of a concern in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania that dozens of municipalities have passed local ordinances forbidding it, and New Jersey in 2005 passed a statewide law to limit it.
Press coverage of the problem in that area has repeatedly focused on Remington & Vernick and its subsidiaries
“In addition to the hidden costs of this practice, pay-to-play also promotes the selection of contractors based on their political contributions instead of their professional merits. It’s been a prime source of political corruption in New Jersey and Philadelphia,” said a May 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer editorial supporting laws curbing the practice.
The editorial went on to say the proposed limits “would impact firms such as Remington & Vernick of Haddonfield, which has received as much as $1 million in no-bid engineering work from Cherry Hill Township over a three-year period and has been a generous campaign donor to both the Camden County Democratic committee and to township candidates.”
I’m not suggesting here that the campaign contributions of Thomas Beach, one of the principals of Remington, Vernick and Beach, are some kind of pay to play. But I am saying that the idea that this was some kind of a grass roots, old fashioned, knocking-on-doors political success story gets more far-fetched with each passing moment. There was big special interest money backing the Democratic Lawyers’ bids for the EN supervisors slots.
Mr. Zurzola’s wife is an admissions counsellor for Belmont Center, a fact that the Times Herald reported in their “meet the candidates” article that ran on September 8. Conspicuously missing from that article, however, is what “The Belmont Center” is:
Belmont Center for Comprehensive Treatment is a 147-bed private psychiatric hospital offering a full array of services for the treatment of behavioral health and addictions disorders in adolescents, adults and older adults.
Oh, yes. And I forgot to mention: It’s part of the Einstein Healthcare Network.
Mr. Dainoff’s father is an abortion provider in South Jersey who is also affiliated with Einstein.
I think that this information would have been material to East Norriton voters to help make their decision on election day.
Which begs the question: what was the purpose of this fluff piece that ran in Saturday’s Herald? Why were the connections of these candidates ignored or glossed over by the Herald? As Dainoff himself said,
[I]t was important that the new supervisor’s board carefully monitor the construction of the new hospital to insure Albert Einstein Healthcare Network fulfills all its obligations to East Norriton. The Philadelphia-based hospital has agreed to build sewer facilities to handle sewage overflows in the Germantown Pike neighborhood and off-site traffic improvements to ease traffic generated by the hospital.
Cronyism and connections are nothing new in politics, to be sure, but these facts came to my attention solely because of Saturday’s TH whitewash article and are now particularly newsworthy in my eyes simply BECAUSE of that article. In the interest of full disclosure, a perusal of Mr. Papiernak’s campaign finance report will reveal my donation of $25 to his campaign. And because I know the candidate and had a bit of familiarity with the obstacles he faced in his bid for supervisor, the Saturday Whitewash piece just raised a huge red flag with me. That’s why I am pursuing it.
Barry Papiernak was fighting a battle on two fronts: the well financed Philadelphia Lawyers and the entrenched old boys (and girls) network in the East Norriton GOP committee. These are facts that may, perhaps, have benefitted the good people of East Norriton before the election, had an enterprising reporter, with an ounce of curiousity, had the gumption to pursue them. They are facts that I have accumulated with little more than a laptop, fax machine, telephone and public records. Resources, I’m sure, that Carl Rotenberg at the Times Herald has access to as well. Stay tuned.
I report so the Times Herald doesn’t have to.
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