Lonegan Calls for Booker’s Transparency

Lonegan Calls for Booker’s Transparency

“What is Cory Booker hiding? Cory Booker pontificates about fairness and transparency, but the people of New Jersey want action, not vapid, hollow rhetoric. New Jerseyans have had enough of liberal politicians who think they are better than everyone else. If Cory Booker really believes in fairness and transparency, he will take the time to make sure that his city complies with the New Jersey Open Public Records Act as soon as possible, and not a day after the special election.”

METUCHEN, NJ – Steve Lonegan, Republican candidate for the United States Senate, spoke out today about the city of Newark’s lack of cooperation with an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request. A similar request was made for Mayor Lonegan’s records as mayor of Bogota, and was answered promptly as required by law (see attached document).

– OPRA Request to Bogota and Reply from Bogota
– OPRA Request to Newark
– OPRA Reply from Newark
– OPRA Second Reply from Newark

Lonegan said, “When a mayor spends the people’s money, he or she ought to be accountable to the public. New Jersey law requires that these records be available upon request.”

The Lonegan campaign requested seven types documents from the city of Newark, relating to Newark as a whole and Cory Booker’s expenses as mayor. After unilaterally extending the deadline to August 14th, the day after the Democratic Primary, Newark did not even meet its self-granted deadline.

On August 15th, the Lonegan campaign received an email from the city of Newark, complying with the requests about Newark in general but completely ignoring the requests about Cory Booker’s expenses as mayor.

The Lonegan campaign has still not received an answer regarding those documents.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee thought it proper to have Lonegan’s expenses as mayor as potential ammo in this race. A review of the documents led to the following reply from the Bogota Clerk’s Office:

Mayor Lonegan had a tiny office which barely fit a desk and a chair; he had no employees, no per diem expenses, no travel, car, phone, credit card receipts, office expenditures; no cell phones; no computers and for several years, he refused payroll compensation for himself.

“What is Cory Booker hiding? Cory Booker pontificates about fairness and transparency, but the people of New Jersey want action, not vapid, hollow rhetoric. New Jerseyans have had enough of liberal politicians who think they are better than everyone else. If Cory Booker really believes in fairness and transparency, he will take the time to make sure that his city complies with the New Jersey Open Public Records Act as soon as possible, and not a day after the special election.”

Lonegan served as Bogota Mayor for twelve years, winning three times in a town that gave Barack Obama 67.5 percent of the vote in 2012. He served for seven years as state director of Americans for Prosperity New Jersey, where he helped defeat liberal attempts to expand big government. Steve Lonegan is the conservative Republican candidate in the New Jersey special election for the United States Senate. Lonegan stands firmly on the bedrock conservative values of small government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.