Legal But Opaque: A Case Study Mapping the Political Economy of Union County Governance

Harbor Consultants, based in Cranford, has been operating on two fronts in Union County… municipal contractor and political donor. Both sides of that story raise fair questions about how business gets done.

Harbor’s work shows up across Union County.

Kenilworth The firm served as Borough Engineer, certifying contractor payments such as $90,410.93 for road improvements in 2023 and $60,479.53 for curb and ramp upgrades.

Union Harbor was appointed as a conflict engineer in 2022 and 2023. Planning Board transcripts from 2024 show applicants responding to Harbor’s review letters, evidence that the firm functioned in that role.

Cranford Harbor Consultants was picked in 2017 to prepare the Birchwood redevelopment plan as a professional-services hire, outside the Planning Board’s usual professional list. That designation was exempt from formal bidding.

And as we’ve written, Harbor also got the nod in Berkeley Heights for a no-bid contract connected to the CMS field.

That contract followed years of political giving to county leaders, though it came after the contributions to Scutari and Bollwage that would later benefit Angie Devanney’s 2022 campaign.

The Checkbook

As these contracts were getting inked, Harbor threw a steady flow of cash to Union County politicos, more than $150,000 over the past twenty years according to NJELEC.

The biggest recipient has been the Union County Democratic Committee.

In Elizabeth, money has gone to Mayor Chris Bollwage, Councilman Manny Grova Jr., and Councilwoman Patricia Perkins-Auguste.

Former Senator Ray Lesniak, the Elizabeth Democratic Committee, and Senate President Nicholas Scutari all appear on the list of beneficiaries.

The Money Flow
Union County Democratic Committee – $115,800 – 2000s–2020s
Chris Bollwage (Elizabeth Mayor) – $22,450 – 2018–2024
Manny Grova Jr. (Elizabeth Council) – $10,300 – 2018–2023
Ray Lesniak (Former Senator) – $9,800 – Various
Elizabeth Democratic Committee – $9,500 – Various
Nicholas Scutari (Senate President) – $7,850 – 2003–2021

(Source: NJ ELEC)

The Trails to Devanney

Harbor Consultants contributed a combined $30,300 to Scutari and Bollwage over the years.

In 2022, Scutari’s campaign contributed $5,000 to Mayor Devanney’s bid for mayor.

Harbor also gave $22,450 to Chris Bollwage’s campaigns. In 2022, Bollwage’s election fund gave $2,600 to Mayor Devanney’s campaign.

George Devanney also received a combined total of $2,250 in campaign contributions from Bollwage and Scutari in his failed bid for BOE, running on a platform that put the turf field as a top priority.

Although Harbor does not show up on either of the Devanneys’ ELEC filings, their campaigns did receive funds from Scutari and Bollwage, who have been longtime beneficiaries of Harbor’s support.

In total, Scutari and Bollwage contributed $9,850 to Angie and George Devanney’s campaigns.

It cannot be said Harbor dollars directly funded the Devanneys’ campaigns. What can be shown is that their campaigns received contributions from officials whose own campaigns were heavily funded by Harbor.

The field is not the only project in Berkeley Heights that Harbor has its hands in, they have gotten the nod on quite a bit of the Township’s money in connection to affordable housing. Concerns about scope creep are something I’ve flagged recently in an article on the last Town Council Agenda.

Campaign contributions are pooled and not earmarked, so it cannot be said that Harbor’s specific dollars were passed along. As we’ve argued in past reporting on New Jersey’s political contribution dynamic, this creates a flow of gray money. The money can’t be tracked by design.

What’s clear is that the Devanney campaigns were boosted by figures whose own campaigns were consistently funded by Harbor Consultants.

The pattern is familiar in Union County: firms that secure public contracts often appear as steady donors to party machines and their power brokers. In Harbor’s case, the alignment is pretty clear.

The same company now holding a no-bid contract for Berkeley Heights’ turf field has also been a long-time financial backer of the officials who wrote checks for Mayor Devanney’s campaign.

As is typical in New Jersey, what emerges isn’t a single transaction, but a network of political money and public contracts, another reminder of how tied governance and fundraising remain in Union County.

To be clear this interplay is entirely legal and not unique to Berkeley Heights. Residents in every community might question the ethics of the dynamic.

The Berkeley Heights Mayor and Council dissolved the local ethics board just before the big push for the CMS Lease Agreement, a decision NJ21st advocated against.

Earlier this year we published an infographic that captured this dynamic, among others.

The Opaque Curtain

In Berkeley Heights, Deb Varnerin serves as Chair of the Berkeley Heights Recreation Commission. This is a volunteer board, no stipend, no paycheck. But it’s a position with clout, overseeing parks, approving facility upgrades, and shaping the future of recreation in a community where turf fields, playgrounds, and open space often spark heated debate. Her term as Chair runs until the end of 2027.

Individually, this one role should spark no concern. However, when we consider that she also serves on the County Election Board and is employed as a Tax Collector in Mountainside, it makes sense as to why residents have brought up concerns. Counties need election commissioners. Towns need tax collectors. Recreation commissions need chairs. But together? It’s a lot. One official overseeing elections at the county level, handling tax payments in a borough, and guiding recreation decisions in her hometown.

Taken together, this can raise concerns around conflicts of interest, not because of anything Varnerin has done, but because of what the public sees: one person sitting in judgment of elections while also drawing pay from municipal government and leading local policy debates.

We recently wrote about the District’s attempt to frame the Recreation Chair’s involvement with the turf field within the framework of “community volunteer.” This volunteer is now empowered to engage in a contract with Harbor Consultants on the field.

We also published information about her communication about the project through private emails instead of a township address. Both the township and school district redacted her personal email address in response to our OPRA request, which they should not have done based on case law connected to the use of private emails and government business. Township representatives reacted strongly when a BOE representative shared information with the community that should have been out in the open all along, that the turf field was no longer on the table.

These two facts together (improper redactions and the use of personal emails) create a firewall of sorts in connection to information surrounding communication and decisions around a publicly funded project on publicly owned property. Individuals can hop from one email address to another, delete emails from their personal accounts with no IT vetting in response to an OPRA request for important documents.

To that point, another BOE representative, in her comments at the most recent Town Council Meeting, disclosed there were no responsive documents to her request for materials surrounding the Chair’s decision to no longer pursue a turf field. A project that she has been working on for years with claims of following due diligence has not a single piece of paper connected to the decision to reverse course?

So piecing all this together:

Money from Harbor went to Union County PACs and Committees.
Money from these PACs and Committees went to Mayor Devanney and BOE candidate George Devanney, both of whom were quite vocal on the BOE signing a lease.

Months later one of the first contracts connected to this project went to Harbor.

The individual engaging in this contract holds three positions of power across the county, has used private emails in communicating decisions around the project, and is empowered to engage in a contract with Harbor.

All of this is legal in NJ, with the exception of redacting private email addresses.

One final note.

You’ll notice that Berkeley Heights gets a lot of attention on this site. A big reason for that is because it’s where we live. But the larger point is that you should read everything about the government bodies of this community through the lens of your own town.

Start digging through your Town or City ordinances, and if they are not published for some bizarre reason, submit an OPRA request after every meeting.

Check who is getting the contracts, whether they show up on NJELEC, and if it’s a no-bid contract, ask why.

If your government starts making a whole lot of noise about a project that wasn’t really a priority until they began raising the volume on it, look harder.

And when you do, write about it and share it with us.

References

uniontownship.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01022023-1105
uniontownship.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01012022-1036
uniontownship.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04252024-1215
cranfordnj.org/planning-board/minutes/minutes
kenilworthborough.com/DocumentCenter/View/1083/25-82-2023-NJDOT-Carroccia-CCM-Payment-3
kenilworthborough.com/DocumentCenter/View/1064/25-73-Pay-AA-Berms-CDBG-50
NJ ELEC Snapshot

Resolutions and Political Contributions: A Final Look at the Last Three Town Council Meetings

Tax Breaks, Turf Politics, and Rising Sewer Costs: What Berkeley Heights Council Plans to Approve Tuesday

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