Public service in New Jersey, outside of maybe the very-small-town level, has come to mean taking orders from the elected officials who appoint you who themselves take orders from the party honchos who give them the party line who themselves take orders from public employee groups and private interests who give them the money to run their campaigns.
What we wind up with are show-hearings that carry out the will of that last group. A perfect example took place last night where I asked a facetious question to make my point:
That catering question wasn’t the facetious one. I was serious there. You can’t really tell if these meetings are catered. For example, they cater Union County freeholder meetings but you never see the food or the freeholders walking out belching and picking their teeth with chicken bones.
The facetious one was whether anyone in that room was representing Covanta because, to me, it looked like everyone there was representing Covanta beginning with Jonathan Williams of the DeCotiis law firm, that is receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for shepherding this debt restructuring, who explained the official motivation for the deal:
Basically it’s a private company doing so well* that they want to “give back.” For those interested I have started doing a serious of blogs on another site exploring real motivations but the fact that Jonathan Williams didn’t get a laugh at that comment or his next one
when he asserted ignorance about the fees his firm is getting out of this deal or this one
where he refused to provide numbers about lost revenue (and begrudgingly admitted that there was even a calculation done) that could make this deal an overall money loser made me wonder who in that room was really representing the taxpayers.
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* Though Covanta does have blips in their business model.
Posted by NFS on September 13, 2011 at 12:39 pm
What arrogance shown by Jonathan Williams. The guy creeps me out. If Covanta wants to give back and is doing so well, all they need do is lower the tipping fees without taking on millions more in debt. Who represents the taxpayers? No one. At least Summit had the good sense to send people.
Posted by burypensions on September 13, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Excellent point there on lowering tipping fees. It would seem pretty easy to draft amendments lowering tipping fees, maybe only $6, instead of trotting out this Rube-Goldberg machination unless your real objective was to protect Covanta’s profits in the face of declining solid waste levels and lower electricity sales revenue.
Posted by briandin on September 13, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I would say that the politicians with the courage to eliminate COLA adjustments til the pension funds reach 80% funding, represent the taxpayers. See, for example: http://www.plansponsor.com/MagazineArticle.aspx?id=6442482100&magazine=6442482149
This article highlights NJ’s recent reform in that area, as well as court decisions in Minnesota and Colorado.
Posted by NFS on September 13, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Any idea who paid/and or hired Gabel & Associates to prepare the Economic Review? Since the UCUA is relying on just one report, whose report are the Counties and municipalities relying on.
Posted by burypensions on September 13, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Likely the UCUA but apparently the NJDEP did their own report that doesn’t seem to be publicly available.
Posted by NFS on September 13, 2011 at 1:32 pm
O.k. … thanks again.
Posted by dieta on September 19, 2011 at 11:05 am
Not only has he accused us all of being NIMBYs regarding the proposed Covanta Incinerator – even though he was completely against the whole thing only 15 months ago according to his quote in the Beds on Sunday – but he proves to us all once and for all that we were right not to vote him to the post of mayor. With the sort of attitude he shows in his letter in Times Citizen this week – and his open dismissal of residents concerns regarding Covanta at a meeting in Stewartby he would be well advised to forget about ever dreaming of representing his County again in anything. I really do not want to say too much because he has a track record of suing – but I guess he could find a job as a PR person for Covanta to help pay off his legal fees.