Probe Highlights Politics’ Ties to State Universities
Jul. 14–The exact scope of a wide-ranging state probe of public universities remains murky, but it has opened a window into the connections between politics and state institutions of higher education.
And that connection is particularly evident with the universities’ all-powerful boards of trustees, which approve borrowing, negotiate contracts, award promotions, set tuition rates, and even pick a school’s president.
Trustees are handpicked by the governor, giving political leaders and their allies great sway in controlling universities.
In the case of Rowan University, the only South Jersey-based school of the five state universities in the State Commission of Investigation probe, the 15-member board has slowly been packed with Democrats.
Since the Democratic Party returned to power with the election of former Gov. James E. McGreevey in 2001, seven new members have been appointed to the Glassboro-based school’s board. Three are regular campaign contributors to Democrats. One is a Democratic Gloucester County freeholder. Another is chief of staff for a Democratic legislator.
The SCI will not confirm any investigation. However, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Ramapo College have all received letters requesting information.
The SCI apparently began its inquiry after a no-bid contract awarded by UMDNJ to Ronald A. White, the Philadelphia lawyer at the center of the city’s corruption scandal who died before going to trial, came to light.
No one has made any allegations against Rowan.
Rowan’s president, Donald Farish, said that since the governor chooses all trustees, the school has only minimal input in the final choice and has taken no sides with either Republicans or Democrats, knowing it must work with whomever is in power.
“The governor consults with whomever he feels like. It varies depending on the governor,” Farish says. “…[W]e are not shy about submitting our own choices. Sometimes the governor will appoint them or won’t.”
Sean Darcy, a spokesman for acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, said candidates are picked for qualifications, not political connections.
The unpaid trustees serve six-year terms and are expected to adhere to a two-page code of ethics to prevent them from gaining financially or politically from their position.
One former trustee whose business intersected with board action was Melvin R. “Randy” Primas Jr., an ex-mayor of Camden appointed to the Rowan board in 1993 by former Gov. Jim Florio, a Democrat.
Between 1998 and 2002, at a time when he served on the board, Primas also was a managing director at Commerce Capital Markets Inc.
In 2001, Commerce Capital was part of a three-member team led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter that was collectively paid $407,862 to underwrite $70 million in bonds for Rowan, records supplied by the New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority (EFA) show.
Commerce Capital also was paid $114,287 in 2002 on a no-bid basis to underwrite about $15 million in additional bonds for various capital projects.
The board approved the financing in April 2002 with Primas present, according to board meeting minutes. The underwriting contracts, however, were arranged separately by the EFA and awarded later.
Primas stepped down from his job with Commerce Capital Markets in September 2002 when he was named chief operating officer for Camden but said at the time that he was retaining stock in the company.
In all, Commerce Capital Markets has been paid at least $792,938 between 2001 and present for various bond work for Rowan through the EFA, state records show.
Primas said he had no knowledge that his own company would be chosen for the bond work. He said other managers handled the university business. “I don’t particularly see a conflict,” Primas said, given that the EFA picked Commerce for the work.
“I generally was not involved in deals going through the financing authority,” Primas said. “I mostly handled municipalities. Clearly if there was anything [conflict], I would have abstained.”
James B. Kehoe is another Democratic trustee whose board business intersects with his work. Appointed to the Rowan board in February 2003, Kehoe is business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union 322.
An executive order signed by McGreevey states that public institutions must use “project labor agreements” that require union and nonunion contractors alike to submit bids under the same conditions and using union wages.
The order is widely seen as favorable to union work. The Rowan board approves construction projects.
Kehoe also is a vice president of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO. The umbrella group’s president is Donald W. Norcross, cochairman of the Camden County Democratic Committee, and another vice president is Stephen Sweeney, both a state senator and freeholder director of Gloucester County, where Rowan is located.
The plumbers union boasted of Kehoe’s and Norcross’ connections in its winter 2004 newsletter. “Our Business Manager [Kehoe] sits on an influential board and our good friend Don Norcross who heads up the Building trades and the South Jersey AFL-CIO is also the Democratic Chairman in the County,” Hal Batdorf Jr., a union representative, wrote. He said their efforts “have created many positive opportunities” for the union.
The newsletter did not specify the board. Kehoe also is vice chairman of the Camden County Improvement Authority, whose members are appointed by the all-Democratic freeholder board.
Kehoe’s Local 322 has contributed $153,975 to campaigns the last two decades, most of it to Democrats.
Kehoe said it is simply a fact of life in New Jersey that governors tend to favor their own party when it comes to trustees.
“Prior to my being here, there were Republicans appointed by [Christie] Whitman,” he said.
Kehoe said that while his union does receive some work at Rowan, he is in no position to influence that. Under state law, all construction jobs are awarded to the lowest bidder, he said.
And school officials said no one trustee has power to push work one way or the other.
In December 2003, the board voted to give the law firm of Parker McCay an open-ended, no-bid, contract for “advice and counsel on a regular basis” pertaining to the school’s plans to acquire property along Route 322 to establish a technology park – despite the university’s access to state lawyers. Since then, Parker McCay has billed the school $223,000.
The chief executive officer of the law firm is Phil Norcross, brother of both George E. Norcross III, the Democratic power broker, and Donald Norcross, the union leader.
Parker McCay’s lead attorney for Rowan, Democratic mayor of Collingswood Jim Maley, set his hourly rate at $220, school vouchers show.
Farish, the school’s president, said the firm was picked after the previous attorney was unsuccessful in acquiring the land and because of Maley’s recognized expertise in land condemnation.
He noted that trustees appointed under Whitman have routinely been reappointed and said he did not believe that the “university is politicized because of the appointment process.”
He also said professionals receiving no-bid contracts in engineering and architecture, for example, are rotated so as to not favor one over the other.
“We try as hard as we can to be nonpartisan,” Farish said. “I’ve never seen our board get into a partisan discussion.”
Some Rowan University trustees appointed since 2001 and their political ties:
–Troy E. Singleton. The Pennsauken resident is chief of staff for Democratic Assembly Leader Joe Roberts and works for Assembly Democrats.
–Juanita Johnson-Clark. A longtime Democratic councilwoman from Lawnside, Clark also is a past director of Camden County’s division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse.
–Helene Reed. Reed is a Democratic Gloucester County freeholder.
–Nicholas Petroni. Petroni and Associates, a Glassboro accounting firm, has contributed $112,450 to Democratic political campaigns since the 1980s, state records show.
–Larry DiVietro. Although DiVietro has contributed to campaigns of both parties, he has personally contributed $32,040 to Democratic campaigns, including State Sen. Stephen Sweeney of Gloucester County, since 2000.
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