The Candidate's Blog: The Final Chapter

How the GT Election was Bought.

‘We need political contributions so we can run our election campaigns.’

While not a direct quote, that is essentially what David Mayer said when asked about large campaign contributions and the relationship of such to efforts in Gloucester Township to instigate Pay-to-Play reforms.

I have waited until now to publish this last official Candidate’s Blog because I needed to wait until the final reports, specifically, the 20-day post election reports, were posted on the NJ ELEC site.

From the NJ ELEC Reports it appears that Team-Mayer (EFO Mayer, Hutchison, Schmidt & Winters) collected a total of $122,883.74 in campaign contributions and spent $119,097.26 to secure reelection.  Below, I have chosen to document only the most egregious case of what can be termed nothing less than a business entity attempting to buy an election. Haddonfield engineering firm, Remington and Vernick (R & V) contributed a total of $64,000 in this election cycle to the Team-Mayer reelection effort. While it is true that R & V contributed no more than the allowable $10,400 in the primary and another $10,400 in the general election to Team-Mayer, if you follow the money trail traced out below you will see that R & V contributed the maximum allowable $7,200 per year to each of the Gloucester Township Democrat PACs which then in turn emptied their coffers into Team-Mayer for the general election. The exception would be PAC funds spent on advertising for Team-Mayer, no doubt, or funds turned over to another PAC.

Additionally, one would have to be naïve to think that R & V was not aware that each of the PACs it contributed to would ultimately turn everything over to Team-Mayer.

The list of contributions following were made by Remington and Vernick (R & V) to Democrat PACs and EFO Mayer, Hutchison, Schmidt and Winters (EFO Team-Mayer) as designated and include the date of the contribution and the amount contributed to whom. The lines below each contribution then document when and how much each of the PACs turned over to EFO Team-Mayer.

1/18/2012 - $7,200.00  R & V -> GT Chairman’s Club

4/2/2013 - GT Chairman’s Club contributed $10,400.00 to EFO Team-Mayer

9/5/2013 - GT Chairman’s Club contributed $4,000.00 to EFO Team-Mayer

2/28/2012 - $7,200.00  R & V -> Assoc. of Former GT Democrat Mayors

4/2/2013 - Assoc. of Former GT Democrat Mayors contributed $10,400.00 to EFO Team-Mayer)

10/9/2012 - $7200.00  R & V -> GT Parents for Educational Excellence

Accumulated funds spent on literature and printing for EFO Team-Mayer and donated to other GT PACs

10/15/2012 - $7,200.00  R & V -> GT Citizens for Responsible Government

10/22/2012 - $2,974.00 to Contemporary Graphics Inc for Literature

11/30/2012 - $3,625.00 to Strategic Message Design Group for Postage

Suffice it to say that this is advertising for EFO Team-Mayer and, for the most part, emptied the account.

8/28/2012 - $7,200.00  R & V -> GT Citizen’s for Gov. Reform

1/16/2013 - $7,200.00  R & V -> GT Citizen’s for Gov. Reform

4/1/2013 - GT Citizen’s for Government Reform contributed $10,400.00 to EFO Team-Mayer

9/18/2013 - GT Citizen’s for Government Reform contributed $10,400.00 to EFO Team-Mayer

5/15/2013 - $10,400.00  R & V -> EFO Team- Mayer

8/27/2013 - $10,400.00  R & V -> EFO Team-Mayer

One wonders what the value of the contracts R & V acquires in GT are worth if the firm is able to skim $64,000 in a two year period to contribute to Team-Mayer. Additionally, it should be understood that the contributions of R & V are nothing more than direct taxpayer funded transfers to Team-Mayer, plain and simple, paid for, in full, by you and me. If the procurement of contracts by R & V did not require the kickback of at least $64,000 in campaign contributions that we know about over the past two years, it is safe to assume that the monetary value of those contracts could be reduced by at least that amount and probably thousands of dollars more.

Congratulations to Team-Mayer who showed us again how to buy an election. David Mayer himself told us so when in answer to the reasoning for the current meaningless Pay-to-Play laws in GT, he said that he needed contractor contributions to run his political campaign. I wonder what he thinks his opponents are supposed to use to fund their campaigns.

I also want to make a few comments on a short episode that transpired between Councilman Dan Hutchison and me after a recent council meeting. After having to sit through the invocating priest, a number of citizens who should know better, and council itself, all drooling over Team-Mayer’s reelection and congratulating the incumbents for their victory but conveniently forgetting the $120,000 spent in winning, I was offered a hand-shake by Mr. Hutchison. I refused, offering him instead my opinion about his role in killing real Pay-to-Play reform in GT thus leading to the debacle that masqueraded as an election campaign in which seated incumbents outspent their Republican opponents for seats on council at the rate of 13-to-1. Team-Mayer spent $119,097.26 while the GT-FIRST Team went door-to-door and spent only $9,497.02, none of which could be construed to be chargeable to the taxpayer.

What was Mr. Hutchison’s response to my opinion about the truth of the campaign? Councilman Hutchison essentially went on a rant, repeating a few choice phrases over and over again. He informed me repeatedly in the presence of another citizen that I needed to “get a life,” that he had read some of my writings and that I was “a miserable man,” and that he had “smoked me” in the election. Finally, Mr. Hutchison informed me that he would not answer any questions I directed to him on council. This I thought was an odd statement since Mr. Hutchison actually serves at the pleasure of the taxpayers and I am surely, if nothing else, a taxpayer in Gloucester Township. I relieved him of that obligation and duly informed him of the rules of council that only the president of council is to be addressed by the citizens and that it is then the president’s prerogative to direct questions wherever he feels the need.

I wish to further point out that Mr. Hutchison makes overuse of the term “dude” when he gets angry and addresses those who are so bold to challenge him. “Grow up, Dan. It’s not befitting of a man of your supposed stature to address your opponents and constituents in such a manner.”

In light of his comments to me, I would like to thank Councilman Hutchison for his service to the taxpayers of Gloucester Township and ask him to remember from where and from which political party he came.

Given the first time Dan Hutchison ran as a Democrat partisan, with Team-Mayer (2009), that $234,439.51 was spent to secure that election, the paltry $119,097.26 spent to secure reelection this year was just pocket change. (This ignores Mr. Hutchison’s non-partisan run with Republicans in 2006.)

My final thoughts on the election are this: Shame on David Mayer and Dan Hutchison for opposing Play-to-Play reform in Gloucester Township and thus allowing such dirty politics to continue in this town. In spite of David Mayer’s comment that such funds are needed and thus accepted to run a campaign and get elected and Dan Hutchison’s comments that these types of contributions in Gloucester Township are not a problem, it is clear that both of these politically astute individuals knows exactly what they are doing. I have chosen to give Frank Schmidt and especially newcomer Michelle Winters the benefit of the doubt, however, I’m not really sure which is worse, the Mayer-Hutchison rationale that everything is all right knowing full-well what is going on or the Schmidt-Winters reality that goes along to get along and possibly not thinking anything is wrong. One caveat for Mr. Schmidt is that this is not his first foray into an election and thus any possible ignorance on his part concerning Pay-to-Play politics as usual becomes much harder to swallow than the possible ignorance of Michele Winters.

For my part, I have to admit my own ignorance and naïveté concerning the role of dirty politics in Gloucester Township. Walking door-to-door and speaking with the disenchanted voters of Gloucester Township gave me an education and I was, ultimately, taught something by these voters. While I did not believe it at first, I understand now that these voters were correct in their evaluation of politics in GT. More than not, what I was told by these disenchanted voters was that while they wished me good luck in my endeavor and that they would vote for me, they said that “nothing would change in Gloucester Township” and they were right.

Congratulations to the taxpaying citizens of Gloucester Township – you paid for Team-Mayer’s reelection campaign…AGAIN!