Council members allege probe of Edison's mayor Attorney General's Office will not confirm or deny allegations BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer EDISON - Council members Salvatore Pizzi and Antonia Ricigliano held a press conference on May 30 and alleged that Mayor Jun Choi was being investigated by the state Attorney General's Office in regard to a bid process that was overturned by the state Superior Court last November. A representative for the Attorney General's Office said that he would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation as per policy. The allegations set forth by Pizzi and Ricigliano state that Choi was involved in a possible bid rigging scheme to give a municipal computer contract to Trikaya, a computer services company. Pizzi said that there were four bidders for that contract and Trikaya was only the third lowest bidder. The lowest bidder, Data Network Services (DNS), contested the awarding of the contract to Trikaya and Superior Court Judge Robert Longhi threw out the contract calling it "absurd and improper." He forced the township to rebid the contract and DNS was the winning bidder. Pizzi alleges that Choi created the evaluation sheet used to determine the quality of the bidder's work and scored Trikaya artificially higher than DNS in order to contract with it. Three of the four bidders, claims Pizzi, took official exception with one aspect of the bid that would require the evaluation to remain private. The only company not to object to this, Pizzi claims, was Trikaya. Pizzi and Ricigliano said that they sent a letter to the attorney general pointing out their concerns with the bidding process. That letter led to a meeting with investigators from the Attorney General's Office, they both say, but neither has had any other substantive contact with the attorney general since then. Jerry Barca, the mayor's spokesperson, said that the allegations of an investigation came with no proof offered by Pizzi or Ricigliano and that the Attorney General's Office has made no contact with the mayor's office. Barca said that the administration has already covered this issue. "We've dealt with that issue," Barca said. "We've addressed that issue. The mayor recommended to the council to rescind the contract before it went to the Superior Court." Pizzi said that the situation calls into question the mayor's integrity especially now that his slate of candidates is vying for the four contested nominations in the June 5 Democratic primary. "His integrity is in question and do you really want a rubber stamp so more things like this can happen?" Pizzi said. Choi called Pizzi's allegation a "desperate attempt to salvage his losing campaign." "It is a shameful political act on his part that not only has he been pushing this issue for six months, he uses it for a political play six days before an election," Choi said.