Assemblyman giving up job at Westfield lobbying firm
BY MICHAEL DEAK
GANNETT NEW JERSEY
Assemblyman Gerald B. Green, D-Union, will resign Monday from his part-time job with the Alman Group, a Westfield-based lobbying firm, to avoid any possible conflict of interest.
He is the firm's vice president for local affairs.
Green's decision was made Oct. 2, a day after Gannett New Jersey reported on his relationship with the firm as part of an eight-day series on government ethics called "Profiting from Public Service: Four years later."
The eight-term lawmaker from Plainfield said he took the action to "eliminate any gray areas" and because he wants to concentrate on major issues in the Legislature if he is re-elected next month.
"I've done everything above board," Green said.
Green, 68, also said he is in line to assume a leadership role next year in the Assembly as deputy speaker pro tempore.
The legislator said he did not want questions about his employment "to take away" from his work on issues such as health care and housing.
"I don't want there to be questions every time I take a stand," he said.
Green sits on the Assembly's Health Committee. He also heads the committee that oversees housing rules.
Among the Alman Group's clients are at least 18 hospitals. In 1999, Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield hired the firm to help win state approval to perform cardiac surgery.
But Green's support of Muhlenberg started before that and continued even after the hospital and Alman parted ways.
Green told Gannett New Jersey that questions about his involvement with Muhlenberg and the city of Plainfield, where he advises Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, are two reasons he previously has backed away from projects with Alman.
For the past two years, the assemblyman said he has concentrated full time on government, advising Robinson-Briggs without being reimbursed.
"We hope to move the city in the right direction," he said.
Many of his clients at the Alman Group were nonprofit organizations, Green said.
In the past, Green said he has taken other action to avoid conflicts, such as selling two liquor licenses he said he owned.
COMMENT
You have to be kidding. How long did it take this idiot to find out that this wasn't right. Or did someone just catch up to him. You know did it get to hot in the frying pan. This guy shouldn't hold an office anywhere let alone here in corrupt New Jersey..
Posted by: shadoh12 on Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:45 pm
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