Dear Chairman Carroll, and Freeholder McPherson,

Regarding Resolution #736 “in support of the Use of the New Meadowlands Stadium for the Super Bowl,” passed by the Bergen County Freeholder Board, on Wednesday May 19, my office followed up on the resolution, and I now have a number of questions that must be answered.

If the intent of the resolution was to urge the 32 owners of NFL teams to select the Meadowlands as the site of the 2014 Super Bowl, why wasn’t the resolution faxed to Commissioner Roger Goodell and the 32 NFL Owners?  My office followed up with the NFL and we found out the following;

Resolution #736 was postmarked from the Board of Chosen Freeholder Office at One Bergen Plaza , Hackensack , NJ on Tuesday, May 25th – the exact same day that the NFL owners were meeting in Dallas, Texas to vote on the selection of the site of the 2014 Super Bowl.

The NFL Commissioner’s Office indeed received the letter today, on Friday, May 28th – 3 days after the vote had taken place.
We also contacted the Government Relations Office of the NFL in Washington DC to see if there was any confusion, and quite possibly if they had received a faxed copy or email.  They did not.

Upon further inquiries here about the process upon which resolutions are sent out, we have found out that resolutions are not normally faxed or emailed from this office, and that resolutions are normally mailed.

So my questions that must be answered, if you knew that the vote by the 32 NFL owners was occurring on Tuesday, May 25th in Dallas, Texas, and you were hoping to have an  impact on the outcome of the vote, why wasn’t the resolution emailed or faxed to each individual team owner?  My guess is considering travel time to arrive in Dallas , it should have been done that same night to make sure all of the owners as well as the Commissioner had ample time to read the resolution, and perhaps contact the Board if they had any additional questions.

On May 12th, you voted on Resolution #645 – “Calling for the State of Arizona to repeal and rescind Sb 1070 pertaining to reforming immigration laws, and calling on Congress to withhold monies from the state until such actions are taken.”  One week later, with the exception of Freeholder Driscoll, Freeholder Ganz and myself, Freeholders Carroll, Calabrese and McPherson admitted at the May 19th Public Meeting, they had NOT read Sb 1070.  Therefore, you introduced a resolution to rescind a law you had never read.  Now, we have another resolution that was introduced and voted upon that had absolutely no impact on the Bergen County taxpayers - a resolution that went nowhere and had no impact.  When will this political theatre end?  You rejected to take a 25% paycut that would have alleviated some of the burden on our county employees now facing furlough days.  You voted down the opportunity to pass real Pay To Play reform here in Bergen County , but I guess when you have employees of the BCDO working for you directly – the lines between the 5th Floor at One Bergen Plaza and 50 Main Street in Hackensack blend.

Stop with the political theatre and games.  I’d like my questions answered.  And if indeed the NFL Commissioner and NFL owners were faxed and emailed, please provide confirmation sheets to my office asap.


Very truly yours,

Freeholder Robert G. Hermansen