Press Release: Middletown Republican Party fails to file campaign finance reports for 4 years

For Immediate Release 

10/26/2020 

 MIDDLETOWN – On October 22, 2020 -- in “Middletown GOP says they’ve filed campaign finance reports. NJ says they haven’t.” -- the Asbury Park Press reported an alleged serious violation of New Jersey campaign finance law by the Middletown Township Republican Organization, involving the Organization’s failure to file quarterly financial reports to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) for the last four years. Even though the State sends written reminders to political organizations to file these reports, the Middletown Township Republican Organization has not filed a report since the 3rd quarter of 2016, when it reported $39,000 on hand.  State Assemblyman Gerard Scharfenberger’s daughter, Alannah, was listed as the Treasurer when the last report was filed in October 2016. She is married to Middletown’s Mayor, Tony Perry, who was appointed to the Township Committee in November 2017 to fill his father-in-law’s seat. Since 2016, the Organization has made contributions to other political campaigns and committees in the amount of $22,650, per the ELEC reports filed by those other entities. Those outflows and the initial collection of monies have gone unreported by the Middletown Republican Organization. The Asbury Park Press obtained copies of multiple violation notices mailed out by ELEC. 

These reporting requirements matter. New Jersey’s Pay-to-Play Law prohibits a local government from awarding a contract to a vendor who has made a political contribution unless a “fair and open process” has been used. For the last 4 years, the donors to the Republican Organization in Middletown are unknown. This hurts transparency and diminishes the ability of the citizenry to hold public officials accountable. The State’s Pay-to-Play laws are also intended to address “wheeling”, the practice of channeling money through different political committees to circumvent contribution limits. When political organizations ignore their reporting requirements, enforcing the law becomes difficult. 

The flagrant refusal to abide by the law is especially damaging in Middletown, where the Middletown Republican Organization oversees a network of appointments and contributions that can be financially rewarding for the professionals who participate. The all-Republican Township Committee laid the groundwork for pay-to-play when they abandoned a more rigid pay-to-play ordinance in 2012. https://patch.com/new-jersey/middletown-nj/new-pay-to-play ordinance-adopted-at-committee-meeting. Since then, Committee members Fiore, Settembrino, and Hibell have been depositing campaign checks from T&M Engineering; the firm has somehow always been appointed as Middletown’s Engineering firm under this “fair and open” process for over 30 years. This appointment can lead to revenue for the firm exceeding $1.0 Million in a single year. Campaign donations have also come from Maser Consulting, the engineering firm consistently hired by the Middletown Sewerage Authority year to year, and from the law firm of our Township Attorney (Archer & Greiner). 

 More disturbing, Gibbons PC, the law firm of the Republican Party Chairman, Peter Carton, has been appointed as bond counsel to Middletown for decades. (Mr. Carton is quoted in the APP article and claims the required ELEC reports were filed but somehow went missing, and that he, a partner at one of the largest law firms in the State, has no copies.) Middletown is also an important cog in the County Republican sphere of influence, and it is there that he makes his biggest score, where every year his law firm, Gibbons, is appointed Bond Counsel for the County of Monmouth, earning $495/hour for this work. So much for competitive bidding. Remarkably, when Middletown receives financing from the Monmouth County Improvement Authority, Carton’s firm represents both the County and Middletown.

The “fair and open process” exception in the State’s Local Unit Pay-to-Play Law is intended to drive down contract costs through competition, but is a joke when Middletown appoints the same professionals every year. The Township has had the same engineering firm for approximately 40 years. The Middletown Committee members vote together on almost every single matter put before them, because, we believe, they have no choice.

Since 2016, numerous republican candidates have been elected or appointed to the five-member Middletown Township Committee, including Patricia Snell, who is currently running for re election on the 2020 ballot. The gravy train of donations is no secret. Public records between 2016 and 2020 tell a familiar story. In 2018, Tony Perry received two donations from T&M Engineering of $1600 and $1200. (We also should not be surprised that More Monmouth Musings blogger Art Gallagher was actively blogging in support of the republican team, since his company, Gallco Media, https://www.linkedin.com/in/artgallagher/, is getting paid by them. Mr. Perry’s campaign made payments of $1360 to Mr. Gallagher’s company (Gallco) for “Social Media Consulting”.) Committeeman Rick Hibell is no stranger to the benefits of the township’s amended pay-to-play ordinance, having received in 2018 $600 from T&M and $1,000 from Archer & Greiner, the law firm of Middletown Township Attorney Brian Nelson. Newcomer Ryan Clarke has joined in this professional largesse in 2020, receiving $1,000 from the law firm of the Township Attorney, $1,750 from Maser Consulting, the engineering firm of Middletown’s Sewerage Authority, and $1,450 from the ever-reliable T&M Engineering.

But when it comes to collecting professional donations, Committeeman Tony Fiore reigns supreme. In his campaign in 2017, our Township Engineers (T&M), whom Mr. Fiore voted to reappoint every year since then, made donations of $2,600 and $600 to his campaign. Maser Consulting, our perennial Sewerage Authority Engineers, made donations of $2,600 and $1,200. Not to be outdone, Archer & Greiner, the law firm of our Township Attorney, Brian Nelson, donated $2,000. That’s $9,000 in donations for Mr. Fiore from outside professionals working for Middletown. Committeeman Settembrino was right behind him with the following donations from T&M for his 2016 campaign: $2600 on 5/10/2016, $900 on 7/21/2016 and $600 on 9/13/2016. In 2019, Settembrino raked in $1,600 from T&M, $1,000 from our Township Attorney, and $1,200 from Maser.

“This is a serious matter,” said Middletown’s Democratic Chairman, Michael Morris. “We should question not only the ethics of Republican officials, but whether taxpayers have been overcharged for contracts that were awarded without competitive bidding when the law required it,” Morris continued. “That is not putting taxpayers first,” he said.

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