Rick Perr

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce wants former Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr fired from his teaching job at Rutgers – Camden School of Law over his involvement in the New Frontier Political Action Committee.

Perr was forced to resign last month as party chairman after a news report tied him to the operation of the PAC, which was founded to aid South Jersey campaigns but donated money to arrested Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, a Hoboken council running mate and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.  

DeCroce wrote a letter to Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick requesting Perr’s termination as an adjunct professor.

“Ethical lapses have significant consequences and it would be height of hypocrisy for him to continue teaching courses on Election and Political Campaign Law,” said DeCroce  “President McCormick, along with the chancellor and dean at Rutgers-Camden Law School, cannot afford to have the school’s reputation tarnished by its affiliation with someone who cannot adhere to the same principles he teaches to his students.”

Early this year, prospects for Burlington County Democrats looked their best in decades.

Democrats Chris Brown and Mary Ann Reinhart were sworn in as freeholders after ousting two Republican incumbents in the November election, narrowing the board’s GOP majority from 5-0 to 3-2.  To make matters worse for the GOP, the two Republican incumbents up for reelection – Bill Haines and Jim Wujcik  – opted to retire, leaving those two critical seats open.  All this came after Democrats built a voter registration advantage of 26,000 over the GOP.

The pieces were in place for Democrats, represented by Mount Holly Councilwoman Kim Kersey and electrician/labor leader Jim Bernard, to take control of the freeholder board for the first time since the 1970s.  But then the party fell apart and reversed fortunes with the GOP.    

The county’s Democratic chairman, Rick Perr and its treasurer, Jeff Meyer, bowed to pressure to resign over their involvement in a PAC that was formed to help South Jersey campaigns but donated money to several North Jersey ones, including arrested Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano.  That muddied the Democrats’ ethics-charging message in a county where Republicans have seen their share of corruption scandals. 

Mercer County Democratic Chairman Richard McClellan scored a clear victory over the local GOP this week.  After the Republicans tried to make an issue of Democrats taking contributions from Rick Perr's controversial New Frontiers PAC, McClellan said that even though the Election Law Enforcement Commission hasn't ruled on questions regarding the PAC, McClellan would put the monies they received in escrow just to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.  He pledged to contribute that money to charity if ELEC finds Perrpac did anything illegal.

Then McClellan beat the crap out of Republicans with their own issue, suggesting that if they "are truly serious" about the need to return tainted dollars, that could start with giving the nearly $52,000 the Mercer County GOP received from Harry Parkin, who was Mercer County Executive Robert Prunetti's Chief of Staff and is now serving a federal prison sentence for corruption, and from cohorts and firms that were involved in the scandal.

DeAngelo Must Disclose How He Received New Frontier PAC Money, Who He Spoke To

Wayne DeAngelo Must Return Tained New Frontier PAC Cash

Burlington County Democratic Vice-Chair Alice Furia, a long time activist who has watched eight chairmen come and go, will lead the party temporarily starting next month.  

Furia will take over for Chairman Rick Perr, whose resignation over his involvement in the controversial New Frontier PAC will take effect at the beginning of September.  Furia’s term ends in June, 2010 although an election for a permanent chair may be called some time between then and the 2009 November election.    

Furia, who at 74 has been involved in the party for 35 years – 20 of them as vice-chair --  has no plans to run for a full term.  She has served in the acting chair position three times before – most recently before Perr took over for former chairman Gary Karr.  

“This is for the young people to get in there and work their butts off.  I just want to now bring to the party some order,” she said.

The leading contender and is Chris Fifis, a former assembly and freeholder candidate who co-owns Ponzio’s Diner in Cherry Hill.

Eighteen hours after Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr resigned amidst a protest from local Democrats over his connection to a political action committee that helped finance Peter Cammarano's campaign for Hoboken mayor, a top party leader says that the controversy was not a Burlington County Democratic problem, but rather "a problem involving two individuals who happened to be Burlington County Democrats."

"The Burlington County Democratic Party is unified, strengthened and positioned to move forward toward November as we continue to fight for reform for every resident of our great county," said Alice Furia, the Democratic Vice Chair.  "In an unprecedented display of unity, county Democrats at every level and in every region stood up and rebelled against corruption in our own house."

The full text of Furia's statement:

Peter Cammarano, elected Mayor of Hoboken in June by a narrow margin and gone in July after federal prosecutors arrested him for taking bribes, seemed to believe that he was on his way to political stardom.  While still a candidate for Mayor, Cammarano appeared to be planning a bid for the Democratic nomination for Governor.  The events that led to the resignation late last night of Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr were tied to Cammarano's empire building strategy.  Perr, it seems, was to be Cammarano's man in South Jersey. 

Just a week before Cammarano was arrested, he had a lunch meeting with a group of about a dozen young Democrats from different parts of the state to talk about his statewide prospects.  Perr was there.  Perr even sent out an e-mail to Democratic donors talking up Cammarano and seeking contributions to his campaign.  He did this while Republicans were outspending Democrats in Evesham by a 4-1 margin as they won back control in the May elections - a move that truly annoyed some key South Jersey Democrats.

Perr had personal political ambitions too.  He aggressively lobbied party leaders to win the Democratic nomination for Congress last year when it appeared that Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights) would not return to the House.  Sources say that in a Global Strategy poll paid for by the Burlington Democratic organization, Perr tested himself as a potential candidate for State Senator in District 8, where the conventional wisdom is that Philip Haines (R-Springfield) will resign later this year to become a Superior Court Judge.  The poll showed that Perr had little name ID and that the leading Republican candidate, former Medford Mayor Christopher Myers, was beating him by a huge margin.  Sources say that Perr ally Jeff Meyer, a lobbyist who quit as party Treasurer because of his ties to a PAC that was helping Cammarano, was himself eyeing a run for State Senate against Diane Allen (R-Edgewater Park) in two years.

Burlington County Republicans have filed a complaint with the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) against Burlington Democratic Chairman Rick Perr and three other Democrats who were involved in the controversial New Frontier PAC.

The complaint, filed by Republican staffer Brandon Umba, requests that ELEC look into whether Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr violated the law “by knowingly running a Continuing Political Committee while serving as Chairman of Burlington County Democrats.”

It also requests that ELEC investigate whether Perr, former Burlington County Democratic Treasurer Jeff Meyer, New Frontier PAC Chairman Dean Buono and PAC Treasurer Jack Senechal violated the law by not disclosing everyone who had control of the PAC, and whether Buono “abidicated his responsibility by allowing his treasurer Jack Senechal to take orders from Rick Perr and Jeff Meyer.”  

Perr, who had denied any involvement in the PAC, resigned last night amid pressure from Democrats after the Burlington County Times published emails in which he and Meyer discussed management of the PAC with Senechal.  Meyer resigned earlier this month.  

The PAC, formed to help Democrats take over Evesham's council in 2007, was used primarily for South Jersey races, but came under scrutiny over donations made to Hudson County politicians -- including Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, who was arrested last month for allegedly taking bribes from an FBI informant.