Younity for Union City

YOUNITY TO STACK:
COME CLEAN ON THE SCC
Tell us your role in how You and Your Friends Profited From The Inflated Sale of 1501 Palisades Avenue
Explain Why You let the SCC Buy a Polluted Site on 39th Street YOUNITY FOR UNION CITY
People Caring About Their Community
P.O. Box 3 Union City, NJ 07087

YOUNITY TO STACK:
COME CLEAN ON THE SCC
Tell us your role in how You and Your Friends Profited From The Inflated Sale of 1501 Palisades Avenue
Explain Why You let the SCC Buy a Polluted Site on 39th Street
Brian Stack
Mayor
City Hall
Union City, NJ April 25, 2006

Dear Mayor Stack

Since there has been no time to debate issues in this campaign, I would like to address some questions to you regarding your conduct in office. I believe it would help the voters decide whom to vote for on May 9 if you would clearly state your positions on several key issues. To make it easier for you I will request only one answer at a time.

The first question is: Are you ever going to tell the truth about your role in the School Construction Corporation fraud that was committed in regard to 1501 Palisades Avenue?

You have gone to great lengths to try to circumvent the issue, but frankly, you have not shed any light on the matter.

How is it that you came to benefit from a $5,000 donation from the owners of the building shortly after it was sold for more than five times its original value?

How is it that the owners of the building received all necessary building permits in record time from the zoning board that you control in order to inflate the sale price of the building?

How could you sit there and allow the school children of this city be ripped off by greedy real estate speculators?

Pg. 2

I know you have tried to make people believe that you were working to alert the state to the wrongdoing that occurred at 1501 Palisades Avenue, but frankly, your argument is beyond belief. In fact, it is just plain ridiculous.

Consider the facts:

1. As a state assemblyman you were a supporter of the SCC, but never uttered a word about installing safeguards to make sure the taxpayer money was properly spent.

2. After months of newspaper reports on the regarding fraud and abuse at the SCC, and an inspector general’s report documenting the fraud, you still said nothing about the SCC. You failed to call for an investigation of the SCC even after there was plenty of evidence to show that children and parents in our neediest school districts were being robbed.

3. You even failed to utter a sentence against the SCC when Gov. Jon Corzine called for an investigation into the agency.

4. BUT – once the Star-Ledger reported that you benefited from a scheme to inflate the cost of the building at 1501 Palisades Avenue – you suddenly became indignant. Only after the SCC sued to recoup the money that your city appointees helped steal, did you suddenly voice concerns about the SCC and produce questionable email messages that you said you sent to the SCC. In other words, mayor, as long as the taxpayers, school children and parents were being ripped off by the SCC, and none of the misdeeds were traceable to you -- you weren’t going to say anything, were you?

II. The second question concerns the recent revelation (Record, April 23) on the SCC’s misguided effort to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to buy a building to be used for a school construction site that is contaminated with uranium. How is it, mayor, that no one in your administration or on the school board you appointed, stepped in to stop the SCC?

How is it that you did not stand up for the residents of 39th Street or for the school children of this city?

It strikes me, Mr. Stack, that you are failing in your oversight responsibilities as a mayor and an assemblyman.

On behalf of the voters of Union City, I think it is time for you to come clean about your involvement in the 1501 Palisades Avenue fraud. I think you owe it to the taxpayers and to the parents of this community to tell us why you did nothing to stop the inflated sale and waste of taxpayer money. You need to explain how and why you got a $5,000 donation within weeks after the Palisades Avenue building was sold for a grossly inflated figure – which would not have been possible if not for the zoning board officials you control.

We await your answers.

Sincerely
Frank Scarafile
Candidate for the Union City Commission