The Friday, July 1st passage of Resolution 13 by our reorganized City Council officially ended Beth Mason's quest for the emails of mayoral aide Dan Bryan and Communications Manager Juan Melli. Yet it's death was slightly acknowledged for a stunt that had ignited the blogs and created a firestorm at the City Council.
What happened?
The email jihad was frankly, weird. Punitive in design, sloppy in execution, it backfired brilliantly.
Check out the TIME LINE:
March 27, 2011: Da Horsey from MSV BREAKS the story that Mike Russo was in the newly-published expose on NJ political corruption, The Jersey Sting. The book noted how he'd met with FBI informant Solomon Dwek and agreed to accept a $5,000 bribe (never collected).
March 28: Patch and The Hoboken Reporter pick up the Russo- Dwek bribe story from Da Horsey's exclusive.
April 6: Mayor Zimmer releases Russo- Dwek FBI surveillance tape transcription on City Hall web site. From the Hoboken Reporter:
“Councilman Russo has revealed his true self to Hoboken,” Zimmer said in a statement today. “His actions speak much louder than his words. Based on my review of the surveillance tapes and the transcripts, I believe there is no doubt that he has broken the people’s trust and is incapable of maintaining his position as Finance Chair, Commissioner on the Housing Authority, or his position as 3rd Ward Councilman.”
The SAME DAY...
April 6: Beth Mason and Mike Russo co-sponsor Resolution no. 6 at the City Council meeting:Resolution directing the production of city information and communication related to expenditures of taxpayer funds for Hoboken’s public relations and communications initiative.The resolution gets tabled.
May 17: The FBI sweeps through Hoboken City Hall- "13 to 15 federal agents" according to Al Sullivan.
May 18: Patrick Ricciardi, City Hall videographer, is missing from the City Council meeting and Hoboken411 reports his City Hall IT office is padlocked.
May 19: Story of the FBI's 'visit' is broken on Hoboken411 and picked up later by local media and the blogs.
June 1: Beth Mason and Mike Russo co-sponsor re-tooled Resolution No. 6:Resolution directing the production of certain city information and communications related to expenditures of taxpayers’ funds for Hoboken’s public relations and communications initiative (Rice notice(s) required at least 48 hours prior to the meeting)Note the inclusion of "certain" city information. The retooled resolution listed 12 persons/entities whose email exchanges with Melli and Bryan were being solicited. GA's was one.
June 3: Mason calls special (email jihad) meeting for Monday June 6th. The meeting is not properly noticed and canceled.
June 8: Mason schedules(another) special meeting for June 13. Zimmer issues a letter to Mason that the FBI warned any further information publicly disclosed may compromise their investigation.
June 13: Mason's special meeting is a total bust. Councilpersons Marsh and Mello, the only reform CC members to show, walk out denying Mason a quorum.
June 15: Mason announces at the City Council that she has spoken with the FBI, and they've agreed to release emails pending their review and determination the release won't impact the investigation. The FBI will return all email copies watermarked.
July 1: City Council reorganizes. Mason email jihad is dead. Boo-hoo.
Quite a yarn, wasn't it?
Notice how seamlessly the Russo-Dwek FBI surveillance tape is woven in with the email jihad narrative.
GA believes emergence of the FBI's Russo-Dwek surveillance tape and the timing of the jihad have everything to do with each other.
Russo knew this embarrassing episode was going to be in the book, and book publication dates are as easily to find as a trip to Amazon.com. So the hit on the mayor, using Melli and Bryan as proxies, ginned up by Mason-Bajardi using City email account access provided by Patrick Ricciardi was ready to drop at a time when maximum distraction was needed. On March 27.
Here's the backfire part.
When the FBI swooped in on May 17, the Mason email hunt turned into a prematurely exploding petard.
"For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his owne petard"
-- Shakespeare, Hamlet III
BOOM!
The suspicion that Mason had targeted selected emails for public exposure because she'd SEEN them already but needed legal cover (a resolution) to produce them seemed likely when City Hall's IT office became a crime scene.
Remember...
City Hall uses web-based email accessed by passwords Ricciardi created. In other words, KEYS for EVERYONE!
It couldn't be any clearer the jig was up when the FBI agreed to give Mason watermarked copies of emails. And they wouldn't have said that by accident. That was a message.
So the journey from too-clever hatchet job on the mayor to exploding hand grenade tells you all you need to know about the magic (and efficiency) of karma.
And it all ended so quietly.
The timeline is absolutely invaluable. The word 'deconstruction' gets used whenever someone does a little homework. But in this case, it fits. You have shown how and why this scheme was cooked up, what it was specifically reacting to, and why it likely spells the end for one or more members of the city council. Superb.
ReplyDeletetwo thumbs up!
ReplyDeleteI ditto Info. I have not closely followed the Mile Square Asylum for quite awhile. So apologies if I'm missing something. Perhaps folks can clarify. I have some questions that perhaps precede all of this ludicrous (obscene, even) waste of peoples' trust & money (not to mention time). Prefaced with all due respect to Zimmer, Bryan, Melli, etc. & awareness of their hard work, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteWho allowed Ricciardi to set up & then maintain passwords in this apparently unsophisticated, easily accessible way---especially given the obvious hostility toward the Zimmer Admn.? Who appointed him? Is he a Roberts hold-over or a Zimmer hire? Is his position one of those State public servant jobs, with a non-modifiable job description & security (but supposedly null & void if indicted & convicted)? To whom does his IT position report? What was his supervisor's role? Again, with all due respect to Zimmer et al, it would seem that young, ostensibly IT-savvy hires such as Bryan & Melli, especially given their respective scopes of work, might have had some curiousity/concerns regarding the set-up. Did they? Did ANYONE explore this pro-actively?
A masterpiece!
ReplyDeleteShall I compare your analysis to a summer's day?
Ah, you're all too kind. But thanks.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm wondering what happens (short term) with Russo- does the CC let him keep his seat on the HHA?
All that expended air, and one simple timeline refutes it all.
ReplyDeleteNice job GA.
On the IT City Hall side, yes those positions fall under civil service. Municipal government here is antiquated and you inherit what you inherit in this case an old, creaky system.
If the email was web based, easy to pass out info and get stuff out to those rabid dogs who want to hate Zimmer for not being someone else who is less eager to cut spending and taxes.
In IT, the person handling email chores is god anyway. They can see everything coming and going. Many companies operate that way and it's a given nowadays.
What's not a given is that someone would use that office to take documents and email information and pass it out like candy.
That's what it looks like occurred.
To your question, GA, let's see if Councilman Russo behaving for ten minutes and playing a little ball allows him to keep the HHA position. That will be a pretty good read-out of what we are dealing with in this town, are we serious or not? I can't answer that question yet.
ReplyDeletei agree w/ p1y.... i think russo keeps his seat as a bargaining chip for later on. russo will publicly support something the administration wants in exchange for keeping the seat. i really hope i'm wrong about this because it means the majority council just played ball with the russo's and nothing good can come of that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is just my long time online. Maybe it is because my first IT job was in 1990 in the college computer lab and even then I would change a password if I was given an account with default password...
ReplyDeleteWho does not change the default password? I've never been stuck with a system that didn't let you change the default. (Granted someone with Admin rights can reset a password to a new default).
Horsey, what's "a given" is that anyone in any work environment---especially a hostile one--- does well to be "agnostic," to torture your IT metaphor. Not paranoid---just savvy & self-aware. Especially about technology these days. Especially about who's controlling the technology. Especially if it's an "antiquated system."
ReplyDeleteThere clearly was insufficient oversight---for whatever reasons. I do not presume to assign blame, except to those who allegedly committed actionable behaviors. For Hoboken & its many good people, I hope there's something meaningful that comes from this latest round of [faux] outrage. No matter what happens with the FBI, Menendez & Christie, etc., perhaps this latest debacle will get some folks to register to vote. And then actually go to the polls & do the right thing!
Hoboken does have a lot of "reform" newbies in muni positions & "advisement." Also opining. Mostly well-intentioned & determined, but many still green. And then some are also looking to turn the circus into an entrepreneurial venture. IMHO.
Hudson Co.'s political perversities have evolved over many decades. Some aspects are glaringly obvious. Some take longer to learn. They like it that way.
Ply & thwnd are right to be skeptical.
There are just so many instances where the system is broken. In all government, at all levels, in every party. As I've said elsewhere, I believe political systems tend to reward sociopathy. Especially so in NJ.
Wasting time & money with little real productivity is what bureaucracies do best. Govermental bureaucracies are the experts. Add the perversity of Hoboken & Hudson County & it's just one ludicrous sh*t storm after another.
GA does such a stellar job of astute sleuthing & analysis, blended with sophisticated humor. This thread's dot-connection will surely be useful for what "Oracle" referred to as "The Jersey Sting II." Thanks for all the good you do! I hope you continue to have fun doing it!
I think thatin order to serve on teh HHA Board, one has to take cedrtain classes and be come "qualified", something which Mikey has done and which gives him a certain level of job security until another memebr of the CC agrees to invsst in the time and effort to become qualified. I think that you can be appointed without the credentials but have to acquire them within a specified time period.
ReplyDelete