GOP CHAIR DAVIS TO FREEHOLDER COOPER: STAND UP ON PATRONAGE ATLANTIC COUNTY REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE
RELEASE: Immediate, CONTACT: Atlantic County
Oct. 25, 2006 Republican Hdqs.
677-0707
Atlantic County Republican chairman Keith A. Davis today called on Democrat Freeholder Alisa Cooper to stand by her professed opposition to political patronage in government by recommending that Freeholder candidate Anthony Falcone withdraw his candidacy because he secured his state job through political pressure.
Cooper leveled her accusations of patronage in county government earlier this year but was unable to produce a shred of evidence that it existed, Davis said. Falcone, on the other hand, was publicly identified by the Democrat state administration for which he worked as someone whose employment was secured through pressure exerted by the office of former Gov. McGreevey --- a textbook case of the kind of patronage Cooper says she finds so offensive.
Davis said that in May of 2005, former Department of Corrections Commissioner Devon Brown told the Assembly Budget Committee that he was forced to accept 14 individuals as department employees because of pressure brought on him by the Governor's office.
Brown publicly identified Falcone was one of the gang of 14, Davis said. At the time, Falcone was director of the Division of Community Programs at a salary of nearly $90,000 per year.
In her comments, Cooper said that patronage appointments should be identified and let the chips fall where they may, Davis said. Well, the chips have fallen and they have fallen on Falcone. What say you now, Alisa?
It's time for Cooper to stand up for what she said she believed in and call for Falcone's withdrawal from the race, Davis said. "Anything less is hypocrisy of the worst kind.
The chairman pointed out that Falcone's patronage appointment was not revealed as part of any partisan agenda, but, in fact, came directly from the Democrat Administration of which he was a part.
Davis added that Falcone receives some $90,000 a year in state salary; $7,500 per year as a councilman in Hammonton, and is seeking a seat on the Board of Freeholders which pays $20,000 a year.
Falcone wants to triple dip and get three taxpayer paychecks totaling over $117,000 a year, Davis said.