>> without this, the entire service area west of the irvington tunnel would be lost. commissioner torres: i have had feedback. "we do not understand what projects you are discussing." i think it is always in order to give a very simple explanation so that the average person understands what we are working with and begins to understand the tremendous savings to get this adjudicated and ameliorated. >> i appreciate the sentiment. president vietor: it may be helpful that when we get the 10% variance request in april to break it into short sound bites on the specific projects. maybe thinking like that. >> desk. -- yes. president vietor: thank you. >> again, the idea of fostering a very cooperative environment was also a key. this team has been one of the teams that has been proactively partnering in practices. you know, i think working with the contractor, eric g., they have to be commended for how proactively they tackle the issue from the beginning. there are remaining steps there are remaining steps, although we dealt with the issue in the field. the issue is what caus

we prosecuted former irvington mayor michael steel who went on to become the business administrator foroard of administration. these were kickback and bid-rigging schemes with two contractors who were supposed to provide school supplies to the school district. the schemes involved a total of $1.4 million in contracts. ultimately, steel pled guilty and so did the contractors, but i point out to you that in addition to the money what steel was constantly doing was shorting the kids of irvington and giving them fewer supplies and pocketing the extra money for himself. the last major public case that we did involved the essex county board of elections, and there were multiple individuals, over ten individuals who we charged including the head of the board of elections for essex county and the husband of state senator teresa ruiz, sammy gonzales. we charged them for falsely voting absentee ballots and also assorted official corruption crimes. this case always reminds me of the former governor of new jersey who used to say that he wanted to be buried in hudson county so that after he was dead