Political Action Committee money, a local law firm, and government contract favors are all at the center of the heated race for mayor of Bayonne, New Jersey. Incumbent candidate James Davis is accusing his challenger, City Council Member-at-Large and Council President Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski, of handing out political favors in exchange for campaign donations from a prominent PAC. The Davis camp is charging that Ashe-Nadrowski’s campaign manager, Joe DeMarco, donated to a PAC that provided financial support for Board of Education candidates in 2021 and in turn, was awarded a handsome government contract. Those same Board of Education candidates are now running for City Council seats, with Ashe-Nadrowski running at the top of the ticket for mayor.
The allegations are swirling around the November 2021 race involving a slate of Board of Education candidates running in tandem under a “Together We Can” banner. Mayor Davis is accusing Joe DeMarco, local attorney and campaign manager of Ashe-Nadrowski’s run for mayor, of directing $2,600 from his law firm to the “America’s Future First” PAC to support the Board of Education candidates. Those candidates, Board President Maria Valado and Trustee Jodi Casais, won their re-election campaigns. They are currently running for City Council under a “Let’s Fix Bayonne Together” slate with City Council President and Mayoral Candidate Ashe-Nadrowski.
More recently, former city hall member Patrick Leonard also won a suit against the City of Bayonne, claiming Ashe-Nadrowski and Joe DeMarco played the system for political and monetary gains. Patrick Leonard won the case, however, lost a defamation countersuit against DeMarco. Leonard was awarded $125,000, but was ordered to pay $3,000 to DeMarco’s law firm before he would receive payment. Of the exchanged, Leonard says,“I stand by every statement I ever made: If I was wrong why did they settle? The only reason I agreed to allow anyone else be part of this was to expedite the dragged out lawyer shenanigans. They are still playing games because I haven’t seen any compensation.”
Mayor Davis’ team is accusing his opponent and her campaign of hiding behind a PAC that masks details about donors and hides campaign finance information from voters.
“Bayonne voters have a right to know who is funding Nadrowski’s sleazy campaign, but she refuses to come clean,” Davis campaign spokesman Phil Swibinski said.
The Davis camp insists that “America’s Future First” is a Super PAC collecting tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the Joe DeMarco law firm and other donors.
“It’s completely hypocritical for Sharon Nadrowski to talk about transparency when she is being backed by Joe DeMarco and a shady web of multiple dark money Super PACs,” said Davis campaign spokesman Phil Swibinski.
Joe DeMarco, Ashe-Nadrowski’s campaign manager, is a partner in the law firm of Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri, and Jacobs, with offices in Matawan and Oakland, New Jersey. DeMarco was the business administrator for Bayonne for three years. He resigned from the business administrator job when his role as a close political adviser to Mayor Davis grew larger. DeMarco twice served as Davis’ mayoral campaign manager.
After Davis’ re-election win in 2018, Joe DeMarco was named special redevelopment attorney for the city of Bayonne. In 2021, he quit that job, did a political about-face, and separated himself from Davis. He pledged his allegiance to Ashe-Nadrowski and signed on to lead her team during this current mayoral campaign. His law firm bio says he is also versed in representing municipal governments and assisting private clients in negotiations with public entities.
Mayor Davis’ team asserts that DeMarco engineered his firm’s donation to the PAC in support of the two candidates Ashe-Nadrowski favored. After the candidates won re-election, they awarded the Joe DeMarco law firm a $40,000 school board contract in February 2022 as a thank you. The contract vote by the Board was a unanimous 7-0 and took place after a 45-minute closed session.
“America’s Future First” PAC is based in Washington, D.C. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings reveal that the PAC funds campaign mailers for candidates and supported at least one mailing for the Bayonne School Board candidates in 2021. Election filings report that the PAC spent more than $100,000 on campaign mailers for various races that year. Candidate Davis is charging that “America’s Future First” pumped $88,000 into Bayonne’s School Board election in 2021. That allowed Ashe-Nadrowski as City Council President to exert control over the Board and ultimately lead the contract that was awarded to her campaign manager’s law firm.
The Davis campaign insists that Super PAC involvement in municipal races would lead the city of Bayonne down a slippery slope of who gets rewarded for what, and they vow to expose it.
“Are her multiple dark money PACs being funded by big developers looking to build in Bayonne neighborhoods?” Swibinski asks. “How can anyone trust that she will stand up for residents when she won’t reveal her financial backers? Bayonne voters deserve to know, and we will not stop working to expose Nadrowski’s shady network of dark money and pay-to-play.”
The mayoral race in Bayonne is a non-partisan municipal election with three candidates: Davis, Ashe-Nadrowski, and Mitchell Brown. The election is on May 10. Davis is seeking his third term as mayor. There are also five City Council seats up for grabs.
