The Jersey City Independent "

The City Council was all set to award a $125,000 contract last night to the Middletown-based engineering firm T&M Associates in connection with the design and construction of the Hackensack River Waterfront Park Project (sometimes called the Marion Greenway Park Project).

But the contract ran into a roadblock as one dedicated citizen argued that it was in clear violation of the pay-to-play law passed by the council last fall. This revelation, brought to light by John Seborowski, Sr., illustrates what even the law’s initial sponsor acknowledges is a major problem with the ordinance: no one is really enforcing it.

As it stands now, the pay-to-play law relies on nothing more than the word of the business seeking a contract. That business has to submit a sworn statement that it “has not made any reportable contributions … that would be deemed to be in violations [sic]” of the pay-to-play law. In T&M’s case, president and CEO Kevin F. Toolan signed just such a statement on Oct. 30.

The problem for T&M are two contributions to At-Large councilman Mariano Vega*’s 2009 re-election campaign. In Vega*’s 20-day post-election report, filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) in August, there is a $400 contribution from company vice president Dominic Carrino, as well as a $600 contribution from the company. (Check them out on page three and 21 of this PDF.)

The law caps a business or individual employee’s yearly contribution at $300 to any candidate, $500 to any joint candidates committee, and $300 to a political committee or political party committee in Jersey City. (Contributions of up to $500 are allowed to Hudson County political committees or political party committees and to any PACs.)

But T&M says it believes the ELEC report is inaccurate. “We don’t believe a contribution was made,” company spokesman Pete McDonough says. “We’re double-checking.” (Vega* could not be reached for comment today.)

Regardless, the resolution approving the contract was withdrawn last night, and when reached this morning, corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis said the city would look into whether or not the contribution put the contract in jeopardy of violating the ordinance.

But as Seborowski points out, the real problem here isn’t the contract, but the pay-to-play law itself.

“The city needs to put a process or procedure in place to ensure compliance,” he says. “In this day and age of automation, it should be easy enough.”

Ironically, enforcement came up at a meeting about the pay-to-play ordinance just last week. Ward E councilman Steven Fulop (the legislation’s initial sponsor), corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis, the Citizens’ Campaign’s Heather Taylor, and local good-government advocates Cynthia Hadjiyannis, Andrew Hubsch and Aaron Morrill were among those in attendance.

Fulop says the purpose of the meeting was “to continue fine-tuning” the ordinance and its implications. Enforcement “is, coincidentally, one of the topics we were addressing.”

He says that two enforcement options were suggested at the meeting: Have the city’s purchasing manager oversee the process, or have “good-government focused people” like Seborowski do it.

Hadjiyannis says that “the most important thing is to provide notices to people before they even try to bid on a contract.” She and Taylor both suggest placing information on the city’s website and in contractor bid packages that makes it clear which vendors are disqualified from bidding on city contracts. “The time to deal with this is before you run into a problem,” Hadjiyannis says.

While “it is the primary responsibility of the business entity to self-enforce,” Taylor says it’s the city’s responsibility to make sure they know about the ordinance. “Every opportunity needs to be taken to make sure that vendors are aware of the law.”

Despite her commitment to the ordinance, Hadjiyannis recognizes that there may be administrative challenges for the city in enforcing it. “That could become somebody’s full-time job, just checking [compliance with the ordinance] … I don’t know, do we want to pay somebody to do that?” But ultimately, she says, “given the history of all the problems we have with corruption … the city should want to deal with the problem and retrain one of the people who works in City Hall to be the pay-to-play compliance officer.”

Matsikoudis says that deciding how to enforce the measure “would be a collaborative effort between the Department of Administration, the Law Department, [and] the council to determine the best direction, especially since this is a new ordinance that we are trying to come to grips with.”

Regardless of if — and how — the city decides to enforce the ordinance, Fulop still says that the vendor seeking the contract is ultimately to blame.

“In the end, we can put a better process in place,” he says, “but these are also sophisticated vendors who are familiar with the law.”

UPDATE: A few days after the meeting with Fulop and community members, the city posted an advisory to its public contracts webpage that alerts potential contractors to the provisions of the municipal pay-to-play law.

Jon Whiten contributed to this report.

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