Meadowlands scandal
sounds familiar
From thnt.com Online,
March 9, 2008
Anyone with a memory for disastrous
public contracts read the state Inspector General's report on the EnCap
Meadowlands project last week with a drowning sense of deja vu. Wind the
clock back several years and you might have replaced EnCap with Parsons
Infrastructure and Technology Group, the company given nearly $600 million to
privatize and modernize the state's vehicle inspection system.
The Parsons contract was eventually declared a "mammoth boondoggle" by a state
agency. What Parsons lacked in expertise and experience, it more than made
up for with sizable campaign contributions, influential lobbyists and even a few
jobs to some important folk. When the report was made public, there was a
great deal of finger-pointing and angry denunciations of pay to play. And
state lawmakers said it would not happen again. It has.
The story of EnCap is virtually identical to that of Parsons in every important
way. According to the Inspector General the company had neither the
expertise nor the experience to do the job it promised; neither did it have the
investors or the financial backing it said it did. But it gave to
candidates, hired one of the state's most politically connected law firms, got
access to the folks who mattered, and landed the project and plenty of public
money that seems to have been relentlessly squandered.
And so, nine years, five administrations and hundreds of millions of dollars
into a project that was going to turn some stinking old landfills into luxurious
golf courses and high-rent residences, the project is knee-deep in garbage.
The Inspector General has asked the state Attorney General's Office to look into
possible criminal behavior. In particular, the company seems to have
willfully misled public agencies in an attempt to get money from both state and
local sources, and the law firm comes in for a good deal of censure and
questionable tactics.
The Inspector General did not investigate public officials, even though the
office's summation speaks to a political system that allowed it all to happen:
"The project is a study in what can go wrong when a public body with high-minded
public policy goals and compelled by its status to engage in fair dealing joins
forces with a private entity whose primary goal is to maximize its profit and
operates in a buyer beware atmosphere."
The real question to be answered is how a "public body with high-minded public
policy goals" came to be duped for so long and so much. The suspicion in
this instance is that high-minded public policy played a poor second fiddle to
the greed of public officials and the buddy system still at work in Trenton.
The only one, in fact, who seems to have acted both competently and openly was
Gov. Jon S. Corzine, when he refused to endorse yet more loans and instead
ordered the Inspector General's investigation.
Several lawmakers and public policy groups have called for an investigation by
Chris Christie, the federal prosecutor in New Jersey. It's a good idea.
The public policy system has failed, yet again. An outsider is needed to
find out how and when Trenton keeps going wrong.
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