Advocates question whether the request was tailor made for Education and Health Centers of America, a politically connected firm and the sole bidder
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A file photo of the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark. The county has proposed using parts of the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark as well as Delaney Hall for use by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as a detention center for illegal immigrants.ESSEX COUNTY — Essex County officials are coming under heavy criticism over how they handled the bidding process for a facility to house federal immigration detainees, a contract potentially worth tens of millions of dollars.
U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and immigration advocates are questioning whether the request’s specifications were tailor-made for Education and Health Centers of America, a politically connected firm that submitted the sole bid by Thursday’s deadline.
Specifications for the contract, which call for housing at least 450 detainees, include that the facility be located within a two-hour drive of Newark, New York and Philadelphia and within a 10-mile radius of the Essex County Jail on Doremus Avenue in Newark; that the successful bidder have a facility already being used for correctional purposes; and that it be within 20 miles of a major airport.
EHCA has contracted with the county to provide rehabilitation and other services for more than a decade.
"This smacks of some kind of a backdoor deal," said Amy Gottlieb, director of the Immigrant Rights Program with the Newark chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker faith-based organization. "It really seems to show the process was not open."
Gottlieb said the bid process raised "serious questions," particularly since the contract involves incarceration.
"The stakes are high. This isn’t a game," she said. "You’re talking about depriving people’s liberty."
In a letter to John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Lautenberg, the vice chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees federal funding to ICE, questioned whether the county’s bidding process was "entirely fair, open and transparent."
Before any agreement is finalized, Lautenberg wrote, "I am requesting that ICE carefully examine the terms and conditions of such an agreement, as well as the manner in which Essex County intends to satisfy its obligations under the agreement in order to ensure that it fully complies with all applicable law."
County officials did not make the bid available, saying it can only be inspected after a formal public-information request is submitted and processed.
An attorney for the company, William Harla, said the company’s bid would be judged solely on its merits. "EHCA did not ask for any special position in the process," Harla said in an e-mail.
EHCA has reaped about $500 million in county and state Department of Corrections contracts since 1997, according to a state comptroller’s report last month.
In January, the county freeholders renewed a $20 million jail-services contract with the company. The bulk of those services are run out of Delaney Hall, a residential center on Doremus Avenue for criminal offenders that prepares them for re-entry into society.
Although EHCA is a nonprofit, it sub-contracted its service contracts to a for-profit affiliate, Community Education Centers, according to state officials.
Both companies are headed by John Clancy, a former county youth services official who has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the campaign of county and state officials, according to state elections records.
Besides Clancy, who also served as president of the New Jersey Association for Youth Services and the chairman of the county’s Family Court Commission, William Palatucci, a close friend and former law firm colleague of Gov. Chris Christie, works for Community Education Centers.
Clancy and Community Education Centers have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions to county and state candidates over the years, including the most recent re-election campaign for Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr.
Those contributions have come under scrutiny from critics of the county’s ICE contracts. Clancy, though, has said that "a battery of attorneys" have determined his contributions are clearly within legal bounds.
In a statement, DiVincenzo said Lautenberg’s suspicions were misplaced.
"While most senators would fight for additional revenue to lower taxes and create jobs for their constituents, Senator Frank Lautenberg has channeled his energy into preventing Essex County’s taxpayers from receiving $50 million in revenue," DiVincenzo said.
The statement said the county fosters open and competitive pricing "so that we can obtain the most professionally delivered and cost efficient services for our residents."