Stender says Republican cries about slush fund are a distraction

WESTFIELD -- Assemblywoman Linda Stender today acted unfazed by the Republican accusation that she wittingly took part in a legislative slush fund to get money for towns in her district, and accused her congressional opponent, State Sen. Leonard Lance, of trying to distract from what she alleged was his ideological duplicity.

"There was money in the budget that passed, and I worked with my towns to make application for grant money. It went into towns regardless of the political affiliation of their leadership," she said.

At a press conference yesterday, the Republican State Committee passed out copies of eight applications for towns in her district to get funding from the controversial Property Tax Assistance and Community Development grants program, which Republicans charge was a Democratic slush fund that distributed $128 million dollars for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 with little or no oversight or documented justification.

The program, which was the subject of Republican suspicion, OPRA requests, and a lawsuit from a private citizen, was ended by Gov. John Corzine upon taking office in 2006.

Republicans charge that favored legislators like Stender may have gotten a piece of the account, while other legislators were left out. They complained not about the programs that Stender got money for, but about the fact that other towns may not have known about the program and had the opportunity to apply for grants.

Stender didn't directly answer a question about how she was informed about the program, instead emphasizing that her requests for money themselves were transparent.

"We knew that there was grant money available. It's a process that we applied to. That's why there's paper that shows what the grant requests were for," she said, noting that some of her requests were made regardless of the political affiliation of the town's leadership. For instance, she requested $50,000 on behalf of Sal Bonaccorso, the Republican mayor of Clark.

So why do the Republicans say that they were never informed of available grant money, and were never given the same applications that Stender's office filled out?

"You should ask them," said Stender. "I have heard that in fact money did go into Sen. Lance's district, so I think he needs to explain that."

The money that went to Lance's district was a $100,000 grant for maintenance at the Belvidere School District, and $100,000 for Lambertville's justice complex. Only, unlike Stender's eight written requests, Lance never applied for those funds.

Still, Lance said that the money that somehow found its way into his district went towards worthy projects. And he said there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the grants that Stender requested. The problem, he said, was the lack of transparency in the process.

"Every legislator has a right to fight for projects in his or her district, number one. And Linda Stender has that right to fight for projects in her district. But the projects should be fully vetted and fully transparent," said Lance.

Stender filed out at least eight forms requesting grants, Lance noted. He didn't even know there were any forms.

Lance went on to criticize Stender for applying for a $25,000 grant for Union County, which ran Reynolds Memorial Hospital, where she had previously been employed. Lance compared it to former State Sen. Wayne Bryant securing a $200,000 grant for UMDNJ, which federal prosecutors accuse was payback for his low-work, low-hour job there.

"This is very important from my perspective: under no circumstances should any legislator request funding for a project of the legislator's employer," he said.

The grant Stender applied for, however, was to create a website connecting the county's various municipal libraries - not the hospital where she was employed.

"The fact of the matter is that the two years I spent at Reynolds ended in 2005," she said.

Stender accused Lance and his Republican colleagues of bringing up the slush fund issue to distract from the unpopular policies of the Bush Administration - a frequent theme of her campaign.

As of the last reporting period, Stender was crushing Lance in fundraising, although the race has remained tight - even in internal polls. A recent Monmouth University poll showed Lance leading Stender by four points, which is just barely within the poll's margin of error. And now Lance campaign sources say they've raised $500,000 this past fundraising quarter, bringing them nowhere near Stender's warchest but perhaps enough to compete.

That fundraising bump, Stender said, was most likely thanks to George W. Bush, who came to New Jersey to raise money for Lance and 3rd District Congressional Candidate Chris Myers. Meanwhile, Stender said the conservative advocacy group Freedom's Watch has dropped $500,000 on television ad buys in the district.

"The fact is that my opponent has been bailed out by George Bush and his goon squad Freedom's Watch because he wants to distract from the fact that he will continue the failed policies," she said.

Stender held that her own campaign's polling tells a different story than the most recent non-partisan poll, showing her "up a couple points."

"This is a tough district. It was drawn as part of the incumbent protection plan to benefit the republican candidate," she said. "And we always knew that this is a tough race, and we're working every day to talk to voters about the issues I think they care about and the change I think they want for the future."