Take a look inside the ocean county blue book and why the fbi wants it

TOMS RIVER, NJ – This month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice signaled they are investigating the Ocean County Board of Commissioners’ hiring practices. The DOJ subpoenaed a treasure trove of human resources and employment documents from the Board of Commissioners as they sought to investigate possible pay-to-play, nepotism, and cronyism in county government.

In a nutshell, they think there’s something afoul in the commissioner’s hiring practices, possibly the doling out of public jobs for political favors, influence, and perhaps even cash.

One of the documents requested by the FBI during this investigation was the county commissioner’s “blue books”. Until recently, most of us had never heard of a blue book. Now, after Shore News Network filed an Open Public Records Act for those books, it has become clear why the FBI wants them.

An example blue book entry of Ocean County Commissioner Virginia E. Haines.

The blue books are logs of job requests made by the commissioners that detail how many people in government positions get their jobs because they know somebody.

Today, we received the blue books and they give an insight into how the sausage is made at the county government level. According to the blue book log dating back five years, the commissioners have tried to advocate for county administrators to give jobs to over 100 friends.

Most of those job requests came from Commissioners Jack Kelly and Joe Vicari between 2017 and 2019. It appears that the Board of Commissioners ceased publicly documenting job requests in 2019 as the blue book log entries simply end after a flurry of activity in those first three years of requested documents.

The Ocean County Commissioners’ blue books read almost like a who’s who in Ocean County politics. Former mayors, councilmen, political campaign workers, advisors and relatives of political donors made the list.

You can see the full blue book requested by the FBI below.

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Phil Stilton is the Editor and Publisher of Shore News Network, an independent digital newsroom providing original reporting on New Jersey, national news, government, public policy, public safety, courts, and community affairs.

As founder of the publication, Stilton leads editorial strategy, investigative reporting, and daily newsroom operations while overseeing coverage that reaches millions of readers annually.

With extensive experience covering municipal government, county government, state legislatures, elections, law enforcement, emergency management, and public records, Stilton specializes in translating complex government actions into clear, factual reporting. His work frequently relies on primary source documents, including court filings, legislation, public meeting records, election finance disclosures, government databases, police reports, and Freedom of Information and Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests. He has reported extensively on local government accountability, taxpayer spending, campaign finance, public corruption investigations, infrastructure, public safety, and the policies affecting New Jersey residents.

Under Stilton's editorial leadership, Shore News Network has grown into one of New Jersey's largest independent digital news organizations, publishing thousands of original news articles each year while providing breaking news coverage, investigative reporting, and analysis across state and local government. The publication's reporting is routinely sourced from official government agencies, public officials, court records, and firsthand documentation, with a commitment to transparency, attribution, corrections when warranted, and clearly distinguishing factual reporting from opinion.

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