‘SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT’
To the Editor:
Your article of Oct. 27, 2015, “Township probing BOE,” left out critical information. It is true that I and two other vendors were invited to submit “quotes” for the town recycling calendar. It was not a “public bid.”
The Local Public Contract Law provides an alternative procedure to public bidding that may be used by municipalities for contracts that would otherwise have to be awarded through public bidding. This project [the recycling calendar] was under the $21,000 bid threshold and, therefore, was not a public bid, which would have been subject to public bidding laws.
I did what a salesman is expected to do and I followed up on my quote.
Subsequent to the voicemail being played at the public meeting, I submitted an OPRA request for the documents that Jeff Mattingly requested in order to question me about this incident at the township meeting.
What I found out is that on Dec. 1, 2014, interim township manager Kevin Esposito asked Police Chief Joseph Rotonda and Dep. Chief Mark Minichini to investigate whether the incident was a violation of the law. Chief Rotonda replied [per a memo drafted by Esposito] that he asked the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office who said they didn’t feel that there was any violation of the law.
Although I explained that there was no violation and Esposito knew that there was no violation, he never expressed that [at the meeting].
Councilman Joe Longo,
Belleville
