NJ Division of Law Says Rumana’s Cogeneration Project Violates Ethics & Public Bidding Laws
Posted by robert.w.burke on 24 Jul 2010 | Tagged as: General
Assemblyman Scott Rumana, Wayne’s Town Council & Board of Education have made clean energy into dirty government.
They created a scheme fraught with conflicts of interest and public bidding law violations under the guise of clean energy — and they got called out by the NJ Division of Law and the Board of Public Utilities.
This is the Mother of All Smackdowns for Rumana.
Rumana’s political crown jewel has been this cogeneration project, which is now not only dead on arrival — but the State has found that its against the law.
Scott Rumana’s scheme involved the sale of energy to Wayne Township from an entity that he formed while Mayor of Wayne, called Wayne Energy Corp. Rumana was Chairman of Wayne Energy Corp., and remains in that position to this day. He was even Chairman of Wayne Energy when Wayne Energy negotiated a no-bid contract to sell energy to Wayne Township. Rumana was also Mayor of Wayne Township at the same time.
Although repeatedly asked by the State to provide documentation regarding these conflicts of interest, Rumana failed to do so. The BPU Order comments that Rumana appeared to have a personal interest in the outcome of the contract negotiation, which created a conflict of interest.
The State also found that the contract terms themselves exposed the Town to “unreasonable risks, the extent and impact of which are impossible to predict.” It furthers the practice of allowing Rumana to dole out patronage positions paid for by public funds — without any governmental oversight because this curious, unlawful structure evades the Open Public Records Act and the Open Public Meetings Act. Thus, no one can scrutinize who Rumana hires and how he spends tens of millions of government dollars. In addition, the contract would have a term of 17 years — and local public bidding law limits contracts like this to two years, to ensure that Rumana’s company would be exposed to market competition for lower prices to benefit Wayne’s taxpayers — instead of allowing Rumana’s company to become unjustly enriched through a 17 year fixed price.
Here’s one excerpt:
“Having reviewed the [contract between Rumana’s company and Wayne Township] and considered the record in this matter, the BPU HEREBY CONCLUDES that approval of the [contract between Rumana’s company and Wayne Township] is not in the public interest. The [contract between Rumana’s company and Wayne Township] does not promote the goals of the [local public bidding laws]. In addition, the Board cannot undermine the public confidence by approving a contract overshadowed by the appearance of a conflict of interest. Accordingly, the Board HEREBY DENIES the petition [for State funding].”
This political shell game won’t be tolerated — not even in Jersey.
Another ironic twist — Rumana has aggressively targeted the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission because of issues like these. I guess Rumana thinks he’s above the law.
And where was Wayne’s Town Council, Attorney & Business Administrator on all this? I guess they were playing along and giving Party Boss Rumana the unlawful scheme structure that he wanted — to the detriment of Wayne’s taxpayers.
If the Attorney General does its job, charges of Official Misconduct ought to follow — against Rumana and every Council member who approved this apparently illegal enterprise.
You don’t have to take my word for it. You can read the 21 page Board of Public Utilities Order that denied funding for this scheme because of the legal violations.
And there’s more. In addition to the BPU Order, there is also a pending investigation before the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards relating to this matter. One issue before the Committee — Rumana’s appearance before the BPU and the State Department of Education on behalf of Wayne Energy Corp.
Why? Because its against the law for a sitting legislator to appear before a State Agency to ask for money for a company that he’s the Chairman of. As one Legislative Ethics committee member said in a hearing last week, Rumana will be voting on the BPU’s budget as a legislator and therefore should not be using his office to influence the BPU to fund his company. That’s a clear and actual conflict of interest, and the Joint Committee needs to finish its investigation and publish its conclusions so that the public trust is preserved.
I’d bet that this Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics doesn’t even know that Rumana got smacked down by the BPU & the Division of Law on this very issue already.
Ironic, huh?
First, Rumana fiercely opposes my clean, renewable wind energy application — which led to his stunning defeat in Court a couple of weeks ago when Judge Volkert concluded that my wind turbine was illegally rejected by the Township.
Then, Rumana touts a power plant project for Wayne (which, incidentally, includes a wind turbine on the high school) as his ultimate crowning political achievement — but it won’t get built because the State of New Jersey has recognized that the scheme breaks public bidding laws and creates conflicts of interest that undermine the public trust.
Only in Jersey.