Herbert Friend

State Senator Diane Allen makes an interesting point regarding the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards: now that State Senator Joseph Coniglio is the target of a federal criminal probe, perhaps the ethics panel was a bit hasty in dismissing Bogota Mayor Steven Lonegan’s complaint against him?  If federal prosecutors found enough information to pursue their investigation of the Bergen County Democrat, who was a plumbing consultant to the Hackensack University Medical Center when the hospital received over $1 million in state funds, why was the ethics committee so quick to dismiss a complaint that was essentially based on the same foundation?

ALLEN LETTER DIRECTS COOPERATION IN CORRUPTION PROBE

BIONDI AND CORODEMUS TO ASK JOINT ETHICS COMMITTEE TO PURSUE WAYNE BRYANT MATTER

U.S. ATTORNEY RAISES NO OBJECTION TO PANEL LOOKING INTO POSSIBLE ETHICS VIOLATIONS AGAINST BRYANT

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ...

Ethics panel should convene more often

Editorial, The Courier-Post, October 26, 2006

In a state with so many unethical people in government, it's embarrassing that a state ethics committee hadn't met for more than a year until this week.

Nothing could put less faith in our state legislators than the fact that the ethics committee assembled to oversee them apparently only meets at the bare minimum.

The state's Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards, a panel made up of eight legislators and eight non-legislators, met Monday for the first time since May 2005.

State law says the ethics committee must meet every two years to reorganize but gives no other information in the form of a timetable.

In a state with as many ethical quagmires, questionable contracts and double-dipping, pension-padding lawmakers as New Jersey, also the home of most corruption jokes about dirty politicians, it's ludicrous that this committee just now met for the first time in well over a year.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ...

A sorry spectacle:
State ethics panel meets with discouraging results

Editorial, The Daily Record, October 25, 2006

We try hard. There is a certain amount of idealism that pervades the craft of journalism, and we want to believe that our lawmakers in Trenton want to do the "right thing," as quaint as that sometimes seems.

Which brings us to Monday's meeting of the state's Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards. It was the first meeting of the year, and considering this is October, that gives you an idea of the priority Trenton leaders place on it.

The committee has 16 members -- four senators, four assembly members and eight members of the public. You can see problems from the outset: the committee has too many members, and it has an equal number of public members and elected officials. If the committee had a majority of public members, the partisan bickering could be controlled a little better.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ...

Clowning around

Editorial, The Star-Ledger, October 25, 2006

One way to get a laugh is to link words that seem to contradict each other. Like military intelligence. Or try this beaut: Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards. Now there's a hoot.

But no one could be amused by that committee's performance Monday. Members met for the first time in a year and a half but couldn't find any ethics problems worth looking into right away.

DeCROCE ANNOUNCES PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS TO JOINT COMMITTEE ON ETHICAL STANDARDS

TWO PUBLIC APPOINTEES BRING EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE TO LEGISLATIVE ETHICS PANEL