While acting as chairman of Brookdale Community College's board of trustees for more than 20 years, Howard Birdsall, was a major shareholder and former CEO of Birdsall Services Group (BSG), which would have seemed to be in violation of the college's strick "conflict-of-interest" policy. In an article published last week in the Independent titled "County, towns caught up in Birdsall probe", officials at Brookdale stated no:
“At no time during his tenure as a member of the board did Brookdale conduct business with Birdsall Services Group,” the statement read. “The bylaws of the board of trustees clearly state that ‘no board member or employee shall have a direct or indirect interest, financial or otherwise, in a contract with the college,’ and this conflict-of-interest policy is strictly enforced.”
If that statement is to be believed than how does Brookdale officials explain their connection with BSG and its role as energy procurement consultant for the County College Electric and Natural Gas Consortium?
As per BSG's website:
In our role as energy procurement consultant for the County College Electric and Natural Gas Consortium, we initially acquired historical data using an Electronic Data Interchange ("EDI") system, secured, and assembled the most recent 12-month historical usage data from the current supplier(s). BSG prepared comprehensive bid documents that were submitted electronically and by hard copy to all licensed third party suppliers in New Jersey. Upon receipt of competitive bids from third party suppliers, BSG performed a bid analysis and determined that it was in the best interest of to the County College Energy Consortium to enter a utility contract with the lowest bidding New Jersey BPU-licensed Third Party Supplier (TPS). The County College Electric Consortium included Mercer, Middlesex, Union, Burlington, and Bergen County Colleges. The County College Natural Gas Consortium includes Bergen, Brookdale, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Mercer, Morris, Ocean, Raritan, and Sussex County Colleges.
BSG remains the energy procurement consultant for the County College Natural Gas Energy Consortium.
It's pretty obvious from the screenshot above that BSG had a relationship with Brookdale, how else do you explain their use of a picture of the college's Larrison Hall on their website? It is also obvious that as a member of the County College Consortium, Brookdale looked the other way, in clear violation of its so-called "strick" conflict-of-interest policy and allowed Howard Birdsall to remain, not only as a member of Brookdale's board of trustees, but as its chairman.
Why would Brookdale lie about this? Maybe they figured that after Birdsall resigned his position on the board in the wake of the scandal that encompassed former college president Peter Burnham, they thought that no one would find out about this and they wouldn't have to answer any additional questions.
Who knows really? But the bottom line is that it is always better to be up front and straight about a situation rather than try and hide it. If you attempt to hide it, then flags get raised and before you know mountains are made out of mole hills and smoke begins to rise and where's there smoke, there's usually fire.
2 comments:
When there is a body like our elected Freeholders appointing and overseeing a Board of Directors at Brookdale, many things the public will never know about will be overlooked. It's not enough to clear the deck of those violating the law. The deck with those looking the other way needs to be cleared, also. If the public keeps electing people that will not take responsibility for appointing these violators the problem still exists. Perhaps these elected officials are the ones that institute these violations.
Who is left on the Brookdale board that was there when this all occurred? Who stood up for the board when the dirty laundry all came out? Answer those questions and you probably have a good idea of what's going on and who has a dirty conscience.
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