Passaic mayor pleads guilty to accepting bribes

Passaic Mayor Alex D. Blanco, a politician who came into office eight years ago under a banner of honest government on the heels of a corruption scandal that brought down his predecessor, pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting $110,000 in bribes from two developers involved in a failed, low-income housing project on Paulison Avenue.

Martini set bail at $100,000 and scheduled sentencing for Feb. 23.

At the culmination of a boisterous, if only acrimonious special meeting of the City Council Thursday, Passaic County Freeholder Hector C. Lora, was unanimously approved as acting Mayor. Gary Schaer, the council’s president, nominated Lora, a former councilmember and state assemblyman. The vote relieves Schaer of his duties as acting mayor, which he took on immediately following Blanco’s resignation.

Schaer told The Record that the nomination was discussed during private phone calls with the other councilmembers, and that while he could not recall who suggested the new acting Mayor, he did not recall any name other than Lora’s having been suggested.

Throughout the meeting sundry city residents urged Schaer to hold an emergency election so that the citizens could choose Blanco’s replacement, saying they had grown wary of any choice by a council they hold responsible for so many recurrent scandals.

After accepting the appointment, Lora spoke about that faded public trust. “I won’t ignore that this city has a past, but it has a future too.”

The new mayor acknowledged that change was necessary, but offered that it would need to come from a government office, rather than any one individual, and vowed to hold himself accountable to the city’s concerns.

Blanco emerged as a leader in the city’s large Dominican community in the wake of the corruption scandal that brought down his predecessor, Sammy Rivera, and several members of the City Council.

Anger, disappointment, but not shock, were the feelings residents expressed outside City Hall Thursday afternoon, some reflecting on the mayors before Blanco who had been convicted of crimes while in office.

“What are the chances the next mayor is not going to do something too? I’ll say 60/40,” said city resident Jackie Ortiz, recalling disgraced former mayors Sammy Rivera and Joseph Lipari.

Jack Cunningham, another of the few residents who spoke about Blanco’s guilty plea, told The Record, “The city has supported him for so long, it’s a shame that he robbed from them.”

The project at 417 Paulison Ave. was partly funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city spent more than $1 million, some of it in federal funds, with the aim of building eight townhouses for low-income buyers to address an acute shortage of affordable housing. But the project barely got off the ground. The city channeled the money through a local non-profit, the now-defunct Upper Monroe Street Improvement Corp.

The project was part of a two-part development deal using federal money, the first phase involving a completed, seven-unit condominium at 277 Broadway, known as Liberty Estates.

The council released a joint statement saying it was a “sad” day for the city, but that the transfer of leadership would not affect city services.

Joseph A. Hayden Jr. said after the hearing Thursday that Blanco was accountable for his behavior.

Blanco has agreed to fully repay the $110,000 he took as a bribe as part of his plea agreement, which was signed on Sept. 23. His salary as mayor was $72,000. He also was employed as a podiatrist with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs hospital in East Orange.

Federal court documents said the city received $1.2 million in federal housing development funds in 2011, and $937,000 in 2012. The records also said that two unnamed developers were contacted by an intermediary for Blanco in July 2011. That August, the developers received $216,400 in funds provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in August 2011.

Blanco personally met with the developers on Sept. 7, 2011 to tell them that if they paid the bribes they would “have no problems with their project,” according to court documents.

Blanco met with a person identified in the complaint only as Developer Two on Sept. 16 to instruct him to make out two checks for a total of $40,000. One check was to replace a check for $25,000 in the initial installment that had been lost, court documents said.

Nina McMurray, a volunteer at the Annabelle Shimkowitz Senior Center, said that she is number 300 on a housing subsidy waiting list.

“It makes me disappointed that he would take money from housing when people need it,” McMurray said. “I’m just getting $765 per month to live on.”

At City Hall on Thursday, municipal employees scurried into an elevator, refusing to give their names to a reporter. Some said they work for the city, but none made statements. “No comment,” was the stock reply.

When he took office, Blanco was believed to be the first Dominican elected mayor of a U.S. city. A former school board trustee, he took office promising to preside over clean government after two of his three predecessors as mayor had gone to prison on corruption convictions.

Blanco announced a “zero tolerance” for wrongdoing by city employees when he took office, and was reelected in 2013. But both his administrations have been marked by a series of corruption scandals involving department heads.

Blanco’s first choice as the city business administrator, Anthony Iacono, was charged with cocaine possession and eventually resigned. A Blanco appointee as chairman of the Housing Authority of the City of Passaic, Darien Allen, was indicted for cocaine distribution and gun possession.

Blanco’s choice to head the city’s Recreation Department, Eriberto “Eddie” Carrero, was indicted for extortion, theft and official misconduct after being accused of shaking down residents for program fees. Carrero is awaiting trial.

Despite those high-profile scandals, Blanco easily won reelection in May of 2013, when he beat three rivals and carried all 30 of the city’s election districts. But even that victory had its drawbacks: turnout was only 24 percent, and his main opponent, Jose Sandoval, later filed a complaint with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission claiming that Blanco hadn’t filed campaign finance disclosures for four consecutive years. That complaint has yet to be reviewed by ELEC.

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