By Walter Elliott
“A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown, among his relatives and his own family.” Mark 6:4 NLT.
ORANGE – There have been people who had tried to advise and caution the city’s elders long before federal agents began serving search warrants on Orange’s institutions Jan. 11, 2017.
Some were volunteer citizens on the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee who made annual recommendations in the context of the annual municipal outlay. Some were professional auditors who would add best practices suggestions in their report.
Then there are a few individuals who, at most every council meeting, point out where Orange’s legislators and administrators should dot Is and cross Ts when it comes to rules, regulations and due process.
It has been the decade-long experience of “Local Talk,” among others that few, if any, of the recommendations, advice or cautions were adopted by City Hall. Some of the professional or volunteer offerings could have prevented the train of past or future bribes, kickbacks, no-show work and/or service theft 2012-16.
It should be noted that the U.S. Department of Justice, the IRS and the FBI – whose agents served search warrants on City Hall, the Orange Public Library and other institutions July 22, 2016, Jan. 11, 2017 and later – have not finished their investigation.
Seven people – from a high department head and OPL director to contractors, a tax preparer and a term paper writer – have been indicted or otherwise charged with fraud and related crimes. Four have pleaded guilty, one not guilty, a sixth has not entered a plea as of press time and a seventh arrested.
The City Council annually appoints city residents to the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee to examine the mayor’s introduced municipal budget. They are nine people who have a business, fiscal or financial background.
CBAC members, after holding regular budget reviews and fact-finding sessions, report their findings back to the council prior to the latter’s final budget hearing. Some recommendations are economizing line items, others are how to better adhere to the law.
Former Orange Board of Education member Tyrone J. Tarver, for example, said he was recommended for an appointment in 2016 after working in East Ward Councilman Kerry Coley’s mayoral campaign. The music producer has a business and financial background.
Tarver, once he and CBAC colleagues received Mayor Dwayne Warren’s introduced calendar year budget in May 2016, noticed a $25,142 payment to Willis Edwards III for a “work expense.” Edwards’ uproarious 41 months as Business Administrator / “Deputy Administrator” / Mayor’s Chief of Staff had ended Dec. 31, 2015.
Tarver had learned that the city had retroactively paid Edwards’ fall 2015 tuition. He also learned that 10 other employees in City Hall’s executive branch were getting tuition reimbursement for classes held during the daytime – when they would otherwise be doing Orange’s business.
A US DOJ indictment said that Edwards had appeared at Orange’s Finance Department with a fraudulent reimbursement letter Feb. 10, 2016. He asked an employee to email the said letter to a second employee to have it retroactively approved to Aug. 17, 2015.
The second employee, characterized in the indictment as “a senior official in the Office of the Mayor,” returned a physical copy of the letter “on Orange letterhead’ that “bore the stamp and initials of the Mayor,” to the first employee.
The first employee sent a copy of the letter with an enclosed city check for $25,125. It is not known whether Edwards then paid Seton Hall University graduate studies – or pocketed the cash.
The incident is one of 31 overall counts of fraud and related crimes federal prosecutors have levied in two indictments against Edwards. The former one-term N.J. General Assemblyman (D-East Orange) faces up to 113 years’ federal imprisonment should he be found guilty on all counts and given maximum sentences.
“We came up with two recommendations,” said Tarver. “One was that employees must be working for the city at least two years before qualifying for tuition reimbursement. The other was that no employee shall take classes while on city time.”
The City Council adopted the said recommendations – in 2017. Tarver, by then, had left the CBAC.
Note: Traver, a former Orange Democratic Committee ward district leader, is running for the East Ward council seat.
“Local Talk” has found Tarver’s experience far from unique or recent. Bruce Meyer had been a CBAC member during parts of Mayors Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. and Warren’s administrations.
The retired airline pilot had been regularly attending council meetings as far back as Mayor Mims Hackett’s administration. He had worked for South Ward neighbor Ed Marable’s council campaign. Marable, after his election, nominated Meyer to the CBAC.
“The first year I was on the committee, we got the budget documents a week before our presentation to the council,” said Meyer. “The departmental budgets were pre-canned: the Recreation Department asked for the same things every year.”
Meyer and committee colleagues became more hands-on the next couple of years. He and Marable would go over the introduced budget line-by-line. CBAC panelists met department heads and held weekly sessions at the Freddie Polhill Law and Justice Complex.
The CBAC made oral and written presentations before the council prior to the latter’s final public hearing. Meyer, however, remembered one year when a council member told him to “not bother with the printed report.”
The council, at another part of the fiscal year, would hire auditors who would review the enacted budget. The professionals would return to point out problems and make corrective “best practices” recommendations.
Neither Orange’s legislative nor executive branches are legally bound to adopt CBAC and/or auditors’ recommendations.
It is a rare pre-pandemic council meeting where no public speaker brings up his or her regulatorily or due process concerns.
William L. Lewis, for example, used to bring his experiences as a former councilman, USAF officer and Western Electric engineer to the public lectern to frame his questions or comments. Lewis, who used to cite Robert’s Rules of Order, died Feb. 18, 2017.
Retired hardware store owner Jeffry Feld, who was trained as a lawyer, regularly submits written advance questions with his in-person queries. Some of his questions have turned into several lawsuits against the city.
The Warren Administration, as of press time, has not introduced a CY2022 budget. The City Council, on March 15, adopted a “temporary emergency appropriation” resolution to the said budget. The council has not nominated this year’s CBAC members.
