Category Archives: Corporate Accountability

2014, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

Rutgers board of governors chair will fight bill to increase political appointees

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By Kelly Heyboer and Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger
May 30, 2014

NEW BRUNSWICK — The 15-member Rutgers University board of governors is the right size and does not need Trenton lawmakers adding more political appointees, the board chairman said Thursday in his first remarks about a controversial measure to expand the school’s powerful governing body.

Gerald Harvey, the board chairman, said he planned to submit written testimony to the state Legislature on Monday calling for lawmakers to reject a proposal introduced by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) to increase the board to 19 members.

“The bill isn’t necessary,” Harvey said. “Each of the governors I’ve spoken to have told me they don’t think the bill is a good idea.”

Sweeney riled many at Rutgers when he introduced a bill to add four members to the board, which oversees the 65,000-student state university. Under the current system, eight members are appointed by the governor and seven are chosen by the Rutgers board of trustees, a separate body made up mostly of university alumni. Proponents say the system helps keeps political influence and meddling in Rutgers affairs to a minimum.

Under Sweeney’s proposal, the four new members of the board of governors would all be political appointees, shifting the balance of the board. The governor would get to fill 10 seats, and the president of the state Senate and the speaker of the General Assembly would each get to fill one seat. The trustees would continue to control seven seats.

The Rutgers board of trustees is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting about the legislation at noon today on the New Brunswick campus. The 59-member group is expected to vote to oppose the bill.

Sweeney said Rutgers officials were overreacting to his proposal to expand the board by adding four new members — all with medical and health backgrounds — to reflect the university’s recent addition of several new medical and health science schools.

“They’re having an emergency meeting tomorrow, for what?” Sweeney said. “This is them running around saying the sky is falling, and honestly it’s not. Nowhere in the bill does it do anything to hurt the trustees.”

The showdown over the expansion of the board of governors is the latest skirmish between Sweeney and Rutgers officials. In 2012, the Rutgers board of trustees led a successful fight to derail a plan backed by Sweeney and his political patron, George Norcross, the most powerful Democrat in New Jersey, to merge Rutgers-Camden and nearby Rowan University in Glassboro.

Norcross is chairman of Cooper University Hospital in Camden, which has partnered with Rowan in a new South Jersey medical school.

In what some say was political payback, Sweeney introduced legislation to eliminate the board of trustees, saying Rutgers did not need two governing bodies. But the measure failed.

Sweeney has repeatedly said Rutgers’ system of governance is antiquated and needs to be updated — especially after the school found itself at the center of several sports-related scandals in recent years.

The state Senate’s higher education committee plans to hold a hearing Monday in Trenton on Sweeney’s new bill (S-1860) to expand the board of governors. Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) has proposed an identical bill in the Assembly.

Harvey, the board chairman, said he could not attend Monday’s hearing in Trenton, but would submit written testimony opposing the measure that would be read by a fellow board member.

Harvey said he would argue that adding four new members to the board with medical backgrounds — to reflect Rutgers’ addition of medical schools last year — is unnecessary. The board already expanded from 11 to 15 members last year after Rutgers’ merger with the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

“The (Sweeney) bill addresses a need that was already addressed,” Harvey said. “This proposed bill simply muddies the water.”

In addition, he said, the board would soon have a number of open seats because the terms of several members are expiring, providing the opportunity to add more members with medical backgrounds. Harvey’s own term on the board is among those ending next month.

Sweeney is not the only one questioning whether Rutgers’ governance system needs to be reformed. Last summer, Rutgers formed a task force to study its governing boards after it merged with UMDNJ. The task force was headed by the Rev. M. William Howard Jr., pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Newark, who is a former chairman of the Rutgers board of governors.

Howard’s group submitted its recommendations over the winter, though Harvey said he and Dorothy Cantor, the chairwoman of the board of trustees, had chosen not to make them public while the university continues to consider reforms.

The task force did not recommend expanding the board of governors or eliminating the board of trustees, Harvey said.

The two boards are continuing to study whether they need to make some changes, including reforms to their committee systems.

“Sen. Sweeney’s bills have been a distraction,” Harvey said.

2013, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

Philadelphia Inquirer Chair Testifies Norcross Controls Board, Decisions

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The Associated Press
By The Associated Press 

 

on November 13, 2013 at 8:53 PM, updated November 13, 2013 at 9:29 PM

PHILADELPHIA — As feuding owners fight for control of Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers, the board chairman testified that politically powerful co-owner George Norcross runs the show.

Norcross is an insurance executive and Democratic powerbroker in New Jersey. He and five other business leaders pooled $55 million to buy The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News last year.

However, philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, the board chairman, said that 18 months later, “everything is really done @ the direction of Norcross.”

The declaration came as a judge weighs a lawsuit seeking to undo last month’s firing of Inquirer editor Bill Marimow, and oust the publisher who fired him.

Fellow investor Lewis Katz, the former New Jersey Nets owner, testified that he and Norcross bought equal shares of the company for $16 million apiece, so that they would both have to agree on major decisions. They had never worked together previously.

Yet Katz said Marimow was fired last month without his consent. He and Lenfest have sued their partners over the firing.

Common Pleas Judge Patricia McInerney must decide whether to return Marimow to the newsroom and oust Publisher Bob Hall, who fired him. The Norcross faction argues such a move would cause yet more turmoil in the troubled newsroom.

The hearing continues Thursday, when Katz’s testimony resumes. Norcross may also take the stand. His roster of lawyers in the City Hall courtroom includes Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. appeals court judge and Transportation Security Administration secretary.

Katz, in his testimony, said the owners signed non-interference pledges to assuage concerns that they would meddle in editorial decisions. But it’s unclear whether the pledge was meant to include hiring or firing the editor.

Lenfest called that a business decision under the owners’ domain.

Hall, though, has argued that he had the unilateral power to fire Marimow, who refused to follow Hall’s order to fire five senior editors.

Marimow said he had assurances that Hall did not control his fate.

He testified that he was hired by Katz and Norcross, after conversations mediated by then-investigative reporter Nancy Phillips, who is Katz’s longtime companion. She had worked with Marimow during his previous stints as editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.

Phillips, now the city editor, said she helped work on an “official version” of Marimow’s hiring, for public consumption, that said then-Publisher Greg Osberg had been involved. The story was meant to protect Osberg’s feelings, she said. Osberg testified that he had no part in the hiring, and quit six weeks later.

The media company also operates the free Philly.com website, now run by Norcross’ 25-year-old daughter, and fee-based websites for each newspaper.

It’s changed hands five times in the past seven years and, like its peers in the industry, dropped precipitously in value. The company sold for $515 million in 2006, nearly 10 times its purchase price last year.

2014, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

George Norcross Ally Joins Rutgers Board of Governors

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ARTICLE | SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 – 5:50PM | BY DANIEL MUÑOZ

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Amid a long line of political controversies between State Senate President Steve Sweeney and Rutgers University, the New Jersey Senate confirmed the Governor Chris Christie’s appointment of William M. Tambussi to sit on the school’s Board of Governors.

Both Sweeney and Tambussi are close allies of George Norcross III, one of the state’s most powerful unelected political players.

Tambussi is a partner at Brown and Connery, LLP, a South Jersey law firm which has represented George Norcross, as well as Cooper Health Systems, where Norcross serves as the Chairman of the Board.

On August 19, the Senate voted to approve Tambussi’s appointment to the board, which is a combination of individuals appointed by the state’s Governor and others selected from amongst the 59-member Board of Trustees.

“Rutgers is a valuable resource for all the residents of New Jersey,” Tambussi said, adding that the Camden campus would be the focus of his service on the board.

“I think the Camden campus is a very integral part of that. My primary goal is to see the Camden campus is enhanced to its full extent.”

Governor Christie had nominated Tambussi to the Board of Governors, as part of a larger package of appointments, back in May 2013.  Senator Sweeney blocked his nomination, along with several of Christie’s other nominees.

According to a 2008 PolitickerNJ report, Brown and Connery  is considered one of New Jersey’s most powerful law firms.

A 2014 Financial Disclosure Statement shows that Tambussi is a partner for Lawland Associates, a Labor Attorney for the Vineland City Housing Authority, a Municipal Attorney for Chesilhurst Borough, and a Special Counsel Professional for Pennsauken Township.

Sweeney had argued against Governor Christie appointing New Brunswick resident Martin Perez to the Board of Governors.  In his argument, Sweeney cited the new requirement of New Jersey state law to have at least one board member from Essex and Camden County.

However, the Superior Court in New Jersey ruled that Tambussi’s appointment satisfied the Camden County requirement.

2011, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

RE-EDUCATING CAMDEN – ONE SCHOOL AT A TIME

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  | JUNE 10, 2011

Democratic power-broker George Norcross wants to see eight charter schools in Camden, and Gov. Christie has some ideas, too.

The Lanning Square site in downtown Camden that is slated for the state’s first “renaissance school.”

This time, Democratic power-broker George Norcross wasn’t on stage with the governor, but at the rear of the sweltering crowd gathered yesterday for Gov. Chris Christie’s second visit to Camden in a week.

The governor was introducing his “Transformation Schools” plan, a small pilot program that would permit private companies to take over the management of select poorly performing public schools.

But even though the governor was at the podium, much of the attention was on Norcross.

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With good reason.

Norcross — who characterized the Camden public school system as a “prison” and a “sewer”— spoke to reporters at length and said that his family foundation and the Cooper Health System and University Hospital, of which he is chairman, plan to provide resources for what could be a chain of charter schools.

The priority for Norcross is a charter built on the site of the former Lanning Square Elementary School, adjacent to the construction site for Cooper’s medical school in downtown Camden. But that’s just the beginning.

Norcross said he has held meetings with a number of charter management organizations already in Camden, including Mastery and Camden Promise. And he said action on the proposal would come soon, even if no application has actually been filed with the state as yet.

Schools Development Authority

The property itself is in the hands of the state’s Schools Development Authority (SDA), and has been slated for a Camden district school under the court-ordered school construction program.

Those plans have been put on the back burner, and while not speaking about Lanning Square specifically, SDA officials said last week that they are considering a number of different options about a variety of properties.

“We are considering a number of possibilities on all SDA-owned properties as we determine the best approach to meet the facility needs that exist in SDA districts while ensuring fiscal responsibility,” said spokeswoman Edythe Maier. “Until decisions have been made and a public announcement is appropriate, the SDA is not in a position to discuss the future plans for any SDA-owned sites.”

A Man with a Plan

But Norcross sounded like a man who viewed those more as formalities than obstacles. He spoke at length about the crisis in Camden schools and the urgency in providing choices to families. He said some of his plans could also incorporate Christie’s for public-private partnerships, but the central point is a new school that will be located on the Lanning Square site.

“We’re moving ahead regardless,” he said. “There is no question there will be a school there, but the question is will it be a charter or something like the governor discussed today.”

He called some of Camden’s public schools little more than “juvenile prisons.”

And standing outside on South 3rd Street, where the governor’s press conference was held, Norcross said the foundations providing the same kind of financial support to Camden public schools would be equally fruitless.

“See that sewer drain?” he said, to a gathering group of a half-dozen reporters. “That is what giving them money would be like.”

Norcross wasn’t stopping with one charter school either. “I would be happy if we had eight charter schools under the Cooper engagement,” he said, roughly a quarter the size of Camden’s entire district.

Coming Out

The comments continued an extraordinary coming-out in the past few months for Norcross on school reform issues. Known to be a bit camera-shy, Norcross last week stood with Christie at a graduation to push for school vouchers and the Opportunity Scholarship Act.

A close ally of Camden Mayor Dana Redd and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and now a Christie stalwart, Norcross is in good position to press his visions for reform in Camden’s schools.

The new proposal from Christie and his acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf adds some more twists to governor’s own agenda. Under the plan, local school boards would petition to the state to be one of five pilot districts that could use “education management organizations” (EMOs) to run their lowest-performing schools.

New Jersey has more restrictive rules than most, but EMOs can now run charter schools, under some conditions. Christie’s proposal would move EMOs into local district schools as well, and would be the equivalent of the districts themselves remaking their most troubled schools. Still, the new schools would be accountable to the state, Christie said.

It’s not a new idea, either, and EMOs are currently operating schools in 31 states. They have become a prime option with federal turnaround grants as well.

“We’re putting this together with our other education reforms, and hoping that the legislature will pick it up,” Christie said.

Cerf said local buy-in was critical. “It’s a different kind of public school,” he said. “It’s all about local decision-making.”

Still, the proposal will be controversial in itself, especially with both Cerf and Christie, to a lesser degree, having histories in for-profit education. Cerf in much of the 1990s was president of Edison Schools Inc., a pioneering private management company that operated schools in Philadelphia to limited success. Christie as a private lawyer lobbied for the same company.

When asked by a reporter, Christie yesterday dismissed his history with Edison as influencing his proposal, only saying all options should be considered to improve the schools. Edison also has since moved away from school management.

Christie said he was not guaranteeing that Camden would be among those chosen under his plan if the proposal is enacted, but he didn’t hide his preference as he stood before the temporary Lanning Square School.

“Let’s get the legislation passed first,” he said. “And then I can come back to Camden to sign it.”

The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the teachers union, quickly came out to denounce the proposal.

“While the details of Gov. Christie’s plan are very vague, the objective is clear,” said NJEA president Barbara Keshishian in a statement.

“It is part of his ongoing effort to privatize public education in New Jersey. Under the guise of helping students, he is attempting to create a system that would funnel taxpayer dollars to private companies.”

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2012, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

Broad Foundation Grant Terms: Gov. Christie Must Stay in Office

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By | December 14, 2012

December 13, 2012; Source: Newark Star-Ledger

Thanks to the intrepid legal work of David Sciarra of the Education Law Center in Newark, N.J., the public has learned that a $430,000 grant from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to the state of New Jersey is predicated on Gov. Chris Christie staying in office. Is this a grant to the state of New Jersey or a grant to Gov. Christie’s New Jersey? Does a foundation get to tell a nonprofit board of directors not to change executive directors or a state’s voters and legislators not to change governors or else the grant is torpedoed? Does the Broad represent a foundation using its funding to dictate public policy from behind the scenes?

The Broad Foundation grant is in support of various educational reforms in the state, with performance benchmarks such as a 50 percent increase in the number of charter schools or the number of high quality charter schools, depending on which way one reads the grant language. It is not the first Broad grant to New Jersey, having been preceded by extensive support to the state’s Department of Education aimed at “’accelerat(ing)’ the pace of ‘disruptive’ and ‘transformational’” change. The Christie-contingent Broad Foundation grant raises so many troubling questions that one hardly knows where to start.

To begin with, Broad included conditions in this current grant that are astonishing, requiring that all public announcements of the program by the state have to be cleared with the Broad Foundation. The grant contains a lengthy provision about making documents, files, and records associated with the grant the property of the Foundation. Are these materials, generated and used by the government as a result of the grant, not to be disclosed to the public? Is the foundation telling government—and the legislature and the voters—what they should accept as public versus private? A foundation spokesperson’s contention that this only applies to a sliver of files containing “personal information” doesn’t seem to fit with the fact that Sciarra and his Center only found out about the terms of this Broad grant at all, much like other Broad funding in the state, by pressing for disclosure through the state’s Open Public Records Act. Giving some definition to the Foundation’s narrow commitment to transparency, the grant agreement adds, “If the state is legally required to make any of these materials public — either through subpoenas or other legal process — it must give the foundation advance notice of such disclosure so that TBF may contest the disclosure and or/seek a protective order.”

Is this what behind-the-scenes, foundation-directed government looks like? Remember that Broad has been paying for a special advisor to Christie’s education commissioner, Christopher Cerf, who himself is a product of the Broad Foundation’s training programs. Is it too much to suggest that this grant is not just predicated on Christie staying in office, but on Christie’s keeping Broad product Cerf in place? Doesn’t the legislature—and don’t the voters—have a say in who runs the government? Shouldn’t the legislature and the voters know what the government is agreeing to do or forego in return for getting money from a private foundation?

This also raises the question of whether other education funders allied with the Broad Foundation are attaching similar requirements on their grant support for New Jersey schools. For example, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, already a controversial donor to Newark public schools, has committed funding behind the Broad Foundation plan to support regional assistance centers to work with superintendent Cerf on school turnarounds. A batch of Zuckerberg grant money was accepted by the state’s Board of Education at the same time as the Broad Foundation’s $430,000 grant was received. Do Zuckerberg’s grants require the continuation of Cory Booker in Newark or Christie in the state capitol, or do they establish secrecy requirements like the Broad Foundation’s grant conditions?

Sciarra thinks that the Broad grant may be “precedent-setting to require that an elected official remain in office as a condition for a grant,” but we suspect that he is wrong, especially in the arena of education reform as practiced by those promoting charter schools. Think of the pushback that arose as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided support to states for the “Race to the Top” initiative with pretty clear evidence of what states would have to do to qualify for the Gates money (see here and here). Or consider the foundations that provided funding to Washington, D.C. schools predicated on the necessary presence of Michelle Rhee as chancellor. The Broad Foundation was part of the group of foundations in that case, tying their grant support to Rhee’s continuation in office.

There is nothing wrong with foundations giving grant support to public entities such as the New Jersey Board of Education or the Newark public schools, but when foundations engage with the instruments of democracy, they have to play by the rules of democracy. That means being open and above board in their dealings, subjecting themselves, their grants, and their interactions with government to the requirements of transparency and disclosure, and not sheltering themselves from the voices of voters. Foundations know how desperate governments are for funding. They know how much leverage, despite their claims to the contrary, they can exercise over government officials. They ought to realize how their involvement can distort the democratic process, whether intentionally or otherwise.

If foundations were to open up on this matter, how many other foundation grants to public sector entities might we find that include language tying the grants to the presence of specific political figures remaining in office? How many other grants to the public sector might we find requiring a foundation to retain confidential ownership and control over documents, files, and communications that are generated and used by public sector grant recipients?—Rick Cohen

2015, Camden News Archives, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Responsibility

Protesters Call for Removal of Camden School District Superintendant

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By Carly Q. Romalino

CAMDEN The Camden School District’s superintendent should resign, local control of the district must be restored, and Renaissance schools must not be expanded, city activists demanded Tuesday.

Save Camden Public Schools interrupted a portion of the New Jersey School Choice Education Reform Alliance conference to deliver the demands to state-appointed Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard, Democratic power broker and Cooper Hospital Chairman George Norcross, and New Jersey Education Commissioner David Hespe.

“We mean business about our schools,” Save Camden Public Schools founder Gary Frazier told Gannett New Jersey at a small protest of about 35 outside the Camden County College conference center on Cooper Street.

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“When is somebody going to do something about it?”

Frazier’s group — supported by the New Jersey Education Association and the Camden Education Association — started four years ago, growing to 400 active members, he said. Its Facebook community has garnered 1,417 “likes.”

“Renaissance schools are not for the city of Camden,” said Robert Cabanas, of Save Camden Public Schools’ counterpart in Newark, a state-run district facing issues similar to the South Jersey city.

Camden’s first newly-built Renaissance school — KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy — opened in September. It’s the first of three new K-8 Renaissance schools to open in the city in the next several years. The new batch is among the district’s seven Renaissance schools.

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The $41 million KIPP school is overenrolled, with a waiting list of 360 kids, the academy’s director told Gannett New Jersey earlier this month.

Protesters believe education funds get routed to Renaissance and charter schools and around other schools in the district, Frazier said.

Rouhanifard said in his conference address Tuesday Renaissance schools receive less funding than traditional public schools.

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Save Camden Schools member Kyisha Colvin, a Camden mother of two, marched with 30 others to oppose charter schools in the city. She took her daughters — 15 and 8 — out of charter schools last year, saying her youngest showed more success at Yorkship Family School than at Freedom Prep Charter School.

She said she believes academic success in Renaissance schools won’t be better.

“We have some really promising early signs of (students) succeeding academically,” Rouhanifard rebutted.

The superintendent — who has met with Frazier and other members of Save Camden Public Schools — said he doesn’t believe “their voices represent the majority of the voices in Camden.”

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However, Rouhanifard, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie in 2013, sees a return to local control of school districts.

“Camden’s fight is very significant for Newark because we’re all state-controlled communities,” Cabanas said. Newark’s school district has been state-controlled for more than two decades.

“We want community schools and a democratically elected school board.”

It won’t take 20 years, but it won’t be immediate, Rouhanifard said.

“To demand local control is to completely ignore history,” Rouhanifard said, reminding them of “adult-driven” school district scandals and a district that “did very little for students.”

“What’s important is to stabilize the school district, leave it in a better place. I think it can be accomplished sooner than later.”

As for Rouhanifard’s resignation, that’s not happening.

“I have no plans to go anywhere, and I will always respect the dialogue,” he said.

Carly Q. Romalino: (856) 486-2476; cromalino@gannettnj.com