Tina Renna of The County Watchers had an interesting post back in March where she reported that Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow defended the all-Democratic Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders' Sunshine-Law violating dinner meetings.
Since Monmouth County's Democratic freeholders take direction from the Union County Democrats, and since it was a previous Democratic board which initiated the practice back in the 70's, and since County Commissioner (neé Freeholder) John "Flippy" D'Amico participated with much gusto in the dinners, will they return here in Monmouth?
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Seems to me like Representative Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY) has some explaining to do.
Records - reported on www.r8ny.com, a New York City political Web site - show Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) accepted a "personal loan" last year for as much as $100,000 from Selig Zises, a large investor in a California-based company that Ackerman called Xenonics Options. However, Ackerman, who denies any improprieties, said the alleged loan was actually a sale of stock that he accidentally misreported.
"I no longer have it," Ackerman said yesterday. "I sold it off a couple weeks back."
On March 9, 2002, Ackerman, a senior member on the International Relations Committee, purchased between $1,001 to $15,000 of stock in Xenonics, which is today valued at between $100,000 and $250,000, according to financial records.
The 12th-term lawmaker said he decided to invest in Xenonics - a name he said he doesn't even know how to pronounce - after a suggestion from Zises, whom he described as a friend.
The U.S. Army awarded the company a $2.98 million contract a year later to manufacture night-vision equipment. Ackerman said he played no role in steering federal dollars to Xenonics.
Within two years of his initial investment, Ackerman's stake in Xenonics Options had ballooned to as much as $1 million.
Why Xenonics? The answer can probably be found in Ackerman's close ties to the Zises family, one of New York's uber-Likudniks. Since 1990, the Zises family Bernard, Seymour, Selig & Jay, contributed at least $30,000 of Unifund CCR Partner proceeds (a vicious collection agency that will sue 160,000 Americans for Credit Card Default this year) to Ackerman's campaign coffers.
How close are Ackerman and the Zises? Close enough apparently for Ackerman to have made a statement on the House floor last year in celebration of patriarch Bernard Zises's 90th birthday, and another upon the death of the Zises family matriarch, Ruth Zises . That's right: a statement on the House floor.
And this is relevant to dinner how?
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