Parking director Kim Jackson retiring from Princeton University amid Trenton ethics probe
PRINCETON » A parking guru caught up in a scandalous ethics probe is stepping down, The Trentonian has learned.
Kim Jackson, the transportation and parking director for Princeton University, is retiring effective March 1, a university spokesman confirmed.
Princeton University flack Ben Chang declined to provide details about Jackson’s sudden exit from the university after 13 years heading up transportation and parking services at the Ivy League institution.
Jackson, who has extensive credentials in the parking industry, has been a focal point of a Trenton Ethics Board probe that centers on her consulting firm and ties to commissioners at the Trenton Parking Authority.
TPA chairman Bill Watson and ex-commish Perry Shaw III are being investigated for possible ethical violations over a lucrative contract awarded to Jackson’s firm under cloudy circumstances that have come to the attention of Mercer County prosecutors.
Shaw was hired last year as executive director of KEJ Associates, which landed a yearlong $120,000 contract to serve as TPA consultant.
The firm’s contract was extended for the next six months while TPA puts the contract out to bid.
Shaw, a former Trenton council candidate, resigned from the board Jan. 30, 2020 and began working for KEJ on Feb. 1.
Watson, Shaw and officials at KEJ are being looked at for possible collusion to rig the contract bidding process, according to records.
The Maley Givens law firm, which was handling the probe for the Trenton Ethics Board before the investigation was put on ice over a contract row, wanted to issue subpoenas to Watson, Shaw, Jackson and her co-founder Howard W. Pollard Jr. after it suspected coordination between the parties.
The law firm pointed to Shaw, then a TPA commissioner, being featured prominently in KEJ’s response to TPA’s posting for the executive director position.
Jackson, the company namesake, formed the KEJ consulting firm a day after TPA’s job posting, called a Request for Qualifications, went out during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2019, records show.
Whistleblowing commissioners Anne LaBate and Evangeline Ugorji alleged in an ethics complaint last year that the RFQ specifications were unilaterally changed without board permission to allow firms and individuals to submit proposals for the contract.
That opened the door for Jackson’s firm, which won the contract by default after it was the lone company to submit a bid.
The aggrieved commissioners alleged in their ethics complaint that Jackson
was an “acquaintance” of Watson, a powerful political operative and brother of Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman.
TPA chairman Watson allegedly worked behind the scenes to ensure political protege Shaw got the sweetheart job.
The commissioners claimed that Watson knew TPA couldn’t directly hire Shaw as executive director because of ethics rules requiring that former commissioners be at least a year removed from serving on the board before working in another role for TPA.
Watson allegedly proposed a workaround the ethics rules in which TPA would hire a firm that would then hire Shaw.
Watson “presumably asked” Jackson to respond to the job posting and hire Shaw “as a condition” of the firm being chosen to fill the opening, LaBate and Ugorji alleged in their complaint.
The commissioners suggested that Shaw didn’t have the professional or educational chops to serve in the consultant role and would’ve never been considered for the gig if not but for Jackson’s involvement.
Jackson has nearly three decades of experience in the parking industry and served as executive director for International Parking and Mobility Institute, a global association of parking professionals.
She left IPMI in 2008 to take over as transportation and parking director at Princeton University but still served on the organization’s board of directors.
In 2020, IPMI, formerly known as IPI, awarded Jackson a Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedicated service over the decades.
Jackson hasn’t responded to phone calls or emailed requests for comment over the last month.
The Trentonian received an automated reply from her university email Saturday that indicated she was out of the office.
Charlie Tennyson, Princeton University’s deputy director of transportation and parking services, is taking over for Jackson in the interim, according to a source with intimate knowledge of the situation.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity over fear of retaliation, suggested Jackson may have been forced to retire after the university caught wind of the ethics probe.
“The one thing Princeton does not want is publicity among any of their people,” the source said. “Right now the story is an embarrassment to them. The university does not want to be connected [to her].”
Chang declined to address whether Jackson was forced out or given an ultimatum.