Freeholders Respond to Criticism of Pay-to-Play Vote

The Monmouth County freeholder board will not reinstate its 2008 pay-to-play regulations, despite criticism from the citizens group that helped craft the resolution.

Supporters of the Citizens Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group, attended Thursday’s Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders meeting at the building in Freehold to question the governing body on its the county’s pay-to-pay rules in favor of the state’s.

“This was a sweeping law, it was the strongest one in the state,” said Heather Taylor, spokesperson for the Citizens Campaign. “We’re here to ask the freeholder board to reinstate the previous policy. If there’s confusion or other issues let’s find a more sensible solution than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Monmouth County counsel Andrea I. Bazer said contractors found the differing county and state regulations confusing. In November, a company had to withdraw a proposal, which was the lowest among those received on the bid, because they didn’t understand the county’s pay-to-play regulations, Bazer said.

“The taxpayers ended up paying more money on a project because there was a misunderstanding of how our pay-to-play worked. And we’ve gotten a number of comments from people who didn’t understand our policy versus the state policy and they were having trouble doing business with us,” Bazer said, noting that the November incident wasn’t an isolated one. “It wasn’t done rashly. We felt it wasn’t in the best interest of the taxpayers because we were losing low bidders and qualified bidders.”

Freeholder Lillian Burry said while she voted in favor of the county’s pay-to-play resolution in 2008, she believed stronger regulations should have been put forth at the state level.

“For some reason this is one area in which they didn’t do their homework. I think we’re forcing their hand and asking them to do this and do it right and do it for the entire state,” Burry said.

The freeholder board drafted a statement, read at the meeting by Freeholder Thomas Arnone, calling for statewide pay-to-play reform.

“It was brought to our attention that the county pay-to-play resolution has created some uncertain process among contractors seeking to do business in Monmouth County,” Arnone said. “We believe there needs to be a uniform policy to ensure the taxpayers receive the services of the most qualified contractors and businesses at the lowest price irrespective of anything else. The freeholder board firmly believes campaign reform is something that needs to be addressed in a statewide, uniform basis.”

Citizens Campaign member and Freehold Township resident Jennie Jeanette “JJ” Mistretta urged the board to maintain the 2008 regulations as the county, saying the current state pay-to-play regulations were inadequate.

“It seems like we’re punishing ourselves to take away a better law — that could have been an example to the state — so we can teach the state a lesson so that they can do a better job and form a better plan. It makes no sense at all,” Mistretta said. “It’s a slap in the face to the taxpayers.”