T&M Engineering Questionable Donations in Hamilton NJ

The Star Ledger as part of an on-going investigation into the Birdsall Engineering illegal campaign donations has discovered that two other engineering firms who did business in Hamilton, NJ may have violated pay to play laws in that town. If a company donates more than $300 they must declare that and are barred from doing business in the town for the next 12 months. T & M paid the Hamilton Republican Party $600 for an ad journal that was never reported. This money then made it’s may to the Mayor of Hamilton’s Campaign Fund. The following year T & M received nearly $75,000 in business from the town. Here is part of the article: Like Birdsall, the two firms — T&M Associates and Remington, Vernick & Arango — made contributions in the form of advertisements in the programs handed out to attendees of former Mayor John Bencivengo’s annual Mayor’s Ball galas. They went on to receive tens of thousands of dollars in township contracts soon after, in apparent violation of Hamilton’s rules.

The money went to the Hamilton Township Republican Committee and was transferred to Bencivengo’s own campaign accounts, committee chairman Michael Chianese said.

Under the township’s pay-to-play rules, first adopted in 2003, if a company makes more than $300 in donations to the campaign of any elected official, candidate municipal party or committee, the firm is barred from receiving contracts for 12 months.

Business Administrator John Ricci said neither firm reported any donations on their disclosure forms, as required when applying for a township contract, and passed pay-to-play examinations by the legal and purchasing departments. He said he did not know why the contributions were not reported. T&M Engineering has always been one of the largest donors to politicians in New Jersey. This is from an Asbury Park Press article and the full article can be read at Red Bank Green. The biggest donor, as it has been in all five years the reports have been compiled, was the Middletown-based engineering firm T&M Associates. It made 184 political contributions totaling $435,110 last year, and was paid $30.3 million from government contracts, up 2.3 percent from a year earlier.

Company spokesman Tom Wilson said the firm doesn’t feel pressure from politicians to make campaign donations, and receives contracts after going through competitive processes that show it’s often the best candidate for the work.

“The reality is it’s one of, if not the, largest professional engineering firms in the state,” Wilson said. “They do work all over the state. They have lots of folks who solicit them for support, charitable, political and otherwise. I don’t think it should be terribly surprising their being at the top of the list.”

T&M Associates did work last year for 17 of the state’s 21 counties or their authorities, including contracts totaling more than $1 million each from Gloucester, Middlesex and Monmouth. It also held local contracts in more than 100 municipalities, including nearly $1.4 million in Union Township in Union County, and $1 million each in Middletown and Red Bank.
T&M Engineering had questionable donations made in Jersey City a few years ago. Here is an article from the Jersey Journal/Star Ledger on how it was resolved Here was an earlier article where T & M Engineering denied making the donation and ultimately the Councilman was told to change the form dates to reflect receiving donations prior to the pay to play laws taking effect. QUESTIONS VEGA REPORT
Firm with city contract denies giving him $$$
Friday, November 13, 2009
By MELISSA HAYES
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City Councilman Mariano Vega’s campaign finance reports have come under fire.

Resident John Seborowski Sr. cited the reports during Tuesday’s City Council meeting, saying an engineering firm may have broken the city’s pay-to-play law. But the firm contends the reports are erroneous.

This is not the only issue with Vega’s reports.

As The Jersey Journal reported yesterday, Vega last month updated his ELEC filings to include $10,000 that was previously not reported. The funds are linked to $30,000 Vega allegedly took from a federal informant cooperating in a federal corruption sting. Vega was one of 44 people the U.S. attorney charged in July.

According to Vega’s May Election Law Enforcement Commission reports, T&M Associates contributed $600 to Vega’s re-election campaign and Dominic Carrino, the vice president of the Middletown-based firm, donated $400. There was no date for the contributions on the report.

Those contributions would appear to violate the city’s pay-to-play law, adopted last year, which prohibits donations over $300 from people and firms doing business with the city.

But T&M spokesman Pete McDonough, a partner at Winning Strategies Pubic Relations, said the donations were never made and noted that the company’s address on the contribution attributed to Carrino is incorrect.

“They checked with the employee and they checked the bank records, and no donations were made,” he said.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Vega said the money had to come from someone.

“If I put it in there, I must have gotten something from somebody,” said Vega, who serves as the treasurer for his account. “I’ll probably look into it.”

T&M is vying for a $125,000 contract for design and construction of Marion Greenway Park at the former PJP Landfill in Jersey City. The council was set to vote on the contract, but the resolution was tabled.

According to the city’s pay-to-play law, a business or individual employee cannot donate more than $300 to any candidate, $500 to any joint candidate committee or $300 to a political committee or political party in Jersey City within one year of receiving a contract with the city.

T&M has an ongoing contract with the city for work it has already done at the PJP tract.

The law also places a $500 cap on donations to Hudson County political committees and political party committees and to any political action committees (PACs) that “regularly” donate to local candidates.

Companies found in violation of the law can be banned from city work for four years.

Jeffrey Brindle, executive director of the Election Law Enforcement Commission, said he couldn’t comment on a specific case, but spoke generally.

“It could possibly be something that is accidental or a mistake. In that case we would work with the filer of the report to amend the report and correct the mistake,” he said.

“On the other hand if it’s an intentional misrepresentation of the source of the contribution we would probably turn it over to the attorney general.”

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 … l_front_and_back_609.html

Red Bank Fund Raiser

In April of 2007 I was invited to a Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. Invitation to Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. This is where I met Rich Kosenski of T & M Engineering the Red Bank Borough Engineer. I was introduced to him by Mayor Menna to speak about my project going before the Red Bank Planning Board. Rich said “What’s your problem why won’t you just go to the zoning board?” I said I was concerned about the amount of projects before the zoning board which would delay the approval and that the monthly carrying costs were very expensive. He said with a laugh “I know it is”. He said he would see what he could do and also said “Why did you drop the original project (BLT) we would have approved that”.  BLT was a very controversal project with double  the amount of units permitted in the zone.  Danny Murphy and Pat Nulle were principals in the BLT project. I was told if I was approved by the zoning board for the old approval it could be again appealed in the courts as it exceeded the zoning density requirements. I had also been blocked by the town on the original rehearing and thought they wanted residential over retail as per Rivercenter requirements. It is also interesting to note that on the one hand he is telling me that they would re-approve a double density project but at the same time he was telling me that the new project was exceeding the density allowed and why they were concerned with the new plans. As we later find out what started out as the original 17 condos in one building became 20 condos in 5 buildings that conformed to the zoning requirements, so density was never really the issue. The most recent approvals now have 57 units in two buildings.