{"id":9035,"date":"2016-07-29T00:29:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T04:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=9035"},"modified":"2016-07-29T05:26:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T09:26:39","slug":"brick-school-boards-no-bid-contracts-draw-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/07\/brick-school-boards-no-bid-contracts-draw-scrutiny\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick School Board’s ‘No-Bid’ Contracts Draw Scrutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Township Board of Education\/Schools (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>Brick school board members were questioned by members of the public and one fellow board member on three \u201cno bid\u201d appointments made Thursday night.<\/p>\n

The board, in a 5-2 vote, appointed\u00a0Netta Architects to act as the district\u2019s architect of record, and\u00a0CHA Consulting as its civil engineer of record. Additionally, in a 4-2 vote, the board awarded a \u201cno bid\u201d contract to\u00a0Bowman and Company to provide auditing services.<\/p>\n

The appointments are part of the continuing fallout from the \u201cThursday Night Massacre<\/a>\u201d incident in January, when a new board majority fired nearly all of the district\u2019s contractors and professionals and sought to then fill the positions with new appointees. The auditing firm, architectural firm and engineering firms that had been contracted with the board were allowed to stay on to complete projects that were already underway, officials have said.<\/p>\n

The new contractors will be paid the same as their predecessors, however that in and of itself stirred controversy, since the board\u2019s Finance Committee apparently requested Business Administrator James Edwards to specifically call the preferred contractors to see if they would be willing to match the prices of the previous firms in their respective areas of expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow were these firms chosen,\u201d asked board member Karyn Cusanelli, who followed up her question with inquiries into references and who made recommendations as to which firms would be chosen.<\/p>\n

Board President John Lamela said the contractors were chosen based on \u201creferrals we were comfortable with,\u201d but did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were giving us the best proposal for the best price rate,\u201d said board member Victoria Pakala, of the chosen firms. \u201cWe were looking for quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still don\u2019t agree with the non-fair and open process,\u201d said resident Larry Reid, a former board member.<\/p>\n

Reid said since there has been a complaint filed alleging improprieties<\/a> in campaign finance documentation filed by the \u201cClean Slate\u201d team which took a majority of board seats in January, the connections between contractors and board members may not be known.<\/p>\n

Board Attorney Nicholas Montenegro said all of the firms submitted certifications that they did not contribute a \u201creportable\u201d donation of $300 or more to elected officials on the board.<\/p>\n

Laurence K. Uher, vice president of Netta Architects, said he has worked in school districts for over 20 years, including in the Brick district with a previous employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been working school districts for the past 20 years \u2026 throughout the entire state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

All three firms are solidly entrenched in state politics.<\/p>\n

Netta\u2019s firm has held contracts statewide and was, for years, in the influential position as the architectural contractor for Union County government.<\/p>\n

Bowman and Company held numerous positions across South Jersey, and was\u00a0referenced\u00a0in a 2008 report<\/a> from state Comptroller Matthew Boxer for having been the auditor of Camden County government for more than 10 years, against the recommendation of the state that municipalities switch auditing firms periodically. After the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a series of articles on the subject, Bowman withdrew its bid to continue as Camden\u2019s auditor for a 14th year. Before the withdrawal, members of the firm had donated thousands of dollars to Mayor Dana Redd.<\/p>\n

Records from CHA Consulting have been subpoenaed as part of a federal investigation<\/a> in New York, centering on whether a lobbyist steered companies to donate to Gov. Andrew Cuomo\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Brick school board members insisted\u00a0the contracts and appointments were\u00a0all above board.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure that there were no additional costs being brought in,\u201d said board member Stephanie Wohlrab, who is employed as a professional Democratic campaign fundraiser<\/a>. \u201cWe felt they were the best qualified, and we asked Mr. Edwards to check and see if they would come down to the current rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cusanelli and board member Sharon Cantillo cast the two \u2018no\u2019 votes.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick school board members were questioned by members of the public and one fellow board member on three \u201cno bid\u201d appointments made Thursday night. The board, in a 5-2 vote, appointed\u00a0Netta Architects to act as the district\u2019s architect of record, and\u00a0CHA Consulting as its civil engineer of record. Additionally, in a 4-2 vote, the board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,24],"class_list":["post-9035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/DSC_0004.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2lJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}