People can get worked up and passionate about politics. Sometimes a person discovers that his or her co-worker is all fired up, puts money to mouth and donates a hundred dollars to a favorite local campaign.

And sometimes a bunch of co-workers get inspired and, say, without discussing anything with one another, donate $4000 to a candidate running for Rockland County Executive.

But in what world does a customer service advisor for a transportation company afford a $4000 campaign contribution? Or say, a parts manager or IT specialist?

The Rockland County Times, with special reporting from Michael Hull of the New City Patch, broke the story last week of eight Brega Transport employees donating $4000 each to Ilan S. Schoenberger, Democratic candidate for Rockland County Executive and a longtime Rockland Legislator from Wesley Hills.

Now, Khurram Saed and Laura Incalcaterra of The Journal News are on the scene as well, reporting in a just published article that a total of nine people associated with Richard Brega’s various businesses have donated a total of $36,000 to Schoenberger this fundraising cycle. Brega Transport Corp has a $70 million dollar transportation contract with Rockland County to provide Tappan Zee Express and TOR bus service for Rockland.

The whole transportation bid process that ended with the Brega award has been in and out of court and was extremely contentious and drawn out, pitting the legislature against Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.

According to Adam Littman’s coverage in New City Patch last year, Richard Brega Jr., owner of Brega Transport, took the  county to state Supreme Court after the county requested proposals from bidders instead of soliciting competitive bids that would award the bid to the lowest qualified bidder. Brega felt the process was unfair to smaller businesses and Justice Francis Nicolai, of Putnam, ruled in Brega’s favor.

Schoenberger, who up to last year was the county chair of the Budget & Finance Committee, said at the time that his committee asked the administration to “give us their evaluation and review of the bidders, and their financial ability to perform the job and their staffing ability to perform the job, as requested in the contract” — but never received a response on the issue. The legislature then awarded the bid to Brega, who came in $7 million dollars under the next bidder. Schoenberger said the bid reward followed Judge Nicolai’s order “to reward the bid to the lowest responsible bidder.”

All 17 Rockland County legislators supported the Brega Transport Corp’s bid, with some reservations related to Brega’s ability to execute such a large transportation job, which involves moving thousands of people per day. Brega Transport had not managed routes as complex as the Rockland contract.

With Suffern Mayor Dagan LaCorte off the ballot, the Rockland County Executive campaign has mostly gone silent, save for Republican candidate Ed Day. Schoenberger has remained silent on many of the complex issues facing Rockland County. For all his perceived faults, Lacorte was at least up to the challenge of broadcasting issues and drawing attention to the county’s apparent system of political patronage and special interests.

But that kind of attention will get your knees knocked out.

Ilan Schoenberger faces off against David Fried in a September 10 Democratic primary to determine who will face Republican candidate Ed Day in the November election. Vladimir Leon, knocked off of the ballot earlier in the contest, has mounted a write-in candidacy.

Photo of Ilan Schoenberger on the stump courtesy of Ilan Schoenberger campaign.