What does the Paterson schools' marketing contract with Benjie Wimberly's son say?

PATERSON — City education officials allowed a private company owned by Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly’s son to sell tickets for Eastside High School’s most heavily attended 2023 home football game even though there was no contract in place for the sales.

The company, Zone6ix, charged up to $15 for admission to the Oct. 19 game against Passaic Tech at Hinchliffe Stadium, even though tickets for Eastside’s other home games cost $4 for adults and $3 for students.

School district officials attributed the higher cost to a halftime concert that featured popular Philadelphia-based rapper D Sturdy, whose performance that day was partly sponsored by the Paterson Police Department. Zone6ix paid $4,500 for the stage and sound system used by the performers, said the company’s founder, Justin Wimberly.

Referees decided to end the game in question during the fourth quarter after fights broke out in the grandstands.

Assistant Schools Superintendent David Cozart — a longtime supporter of the assemblyman — said during a Nov. 13 Board of Education meeting that Wimberly’s son would be providing $3,000 from the Tech ticket revenue to Eastside. Cozart said the $3,000 represented more money than the district has received from all of this year’s other Eastside and John F. Kennedy High School football games combined.

But Cozart and other district officials have not made public any breakdown of how many tickets were sold for the Eastside-Tech game or any details on what percentage of the total proceeds the $3,000 represented. They also have not said who exactly authorized Zone6ix to handle the ticket sales for the game.

What did Justin Wimberly say?

In a phone interview on Dec. 7, Justin Wimberly told Paterson Press he would be sending the district the $3,000 last week. As of Thursday morning, the district had not received the $3,000 from Zone6ix, officials said.

In the phone interview, the assemblyman’s son said about 3,800 tickets were distributed for the Eastside-Tech game. People paying cash at Hinchliffe were charged $10 for their tickets, and those paying online were charged $15, he said.

Earlier: Paterson school board approves sports marketing contract for Benjie Wimberly's son

Many people got free tickets for the game, Wimberly said. The free tickets included some distributed to the high schools playing in the game, with others given out through a promotion with the Subway and McDonald’s franchises in Paterson and the rest through a Zone6ix partnership with the College Achieve charter schools in Paterson.

Besides the cost of the stage and sound system for the game, Wimberly said, his expenses included paying the 23 people on Zone6ix’s event staff.

Wimberly said Zone6ix ended up with a $6,250 profit on the game. But that figure would be reduced to $3,250 after Zone6ix provides Eastside with $3,000, he said.

“For all the games we’ve done in the past, ticket sales have never surpassed expenses,” Wimberly said.

Financial records show that district staff handled ticket sales for most other home games for Paterson’s high school football teams this year. None of the other games attracted crowds as large as the 3,800 Justin Wimberly said attended the Oct. 19 Eastside-Tech game.

The next-largest crowd was about 500 people for the Thanksgiving Day rivalry game between Eastside and Kennedy, which returned to Hinchliffe for the first time in more than 25 years. The ticket sale records show Eastside’s Aug. 25 game against Snyder drew 233 paying fans, Eastside’s Sept. 8 game against Columbia attracted 120 people, and Kennedy’s Oct. 13 game against Bayonne drew 102 paying fans.

In pitching the Zone6ix contract to the school board last month, Cozart said there was a need to boost attendance at games now that they are being played at Hinchliffe Stadium, which has a capacity of almost 8,000.

Cozart said Zone6ix was needed to “drive traffic” to the contests at Hinchliffe; otherwise the games would “look very empty at the new stadium.”

He also told the school board that district officials may ask New Jersey’s scholastic sports association to designate Hinchliffe as one of the places where state playoffs games would be played.

Zone6ix had a $200,000 contract with the Paterson Board of Education for the 2022-23 year to set up a student incentive program at various city schools, an initiative that used access to newly created game rooms in the school to reward good academic and behavioral performance. That contract ended on June 30.

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What does the district's new contract with Zone6ix contain?

The Board of Education on Nov. 13 approved a new, two-year $17,500 annual contract with Zone6ix for “marketing and promotional services for district athletics.” That no-bid contract took effect Nov. 1, which was almost two weeks after the Eastside-Tech game.

The scope of work described under the district’s Zone6ix contract made no specific reference to the company's handling ticket sales for high school sports events. It mentioned such things as “visible signage at athletics venues,” “developing better practices for social media coverage of athletic events" and “direct consumer marketing.”

But the contract included wording that allowed for flexibility.

“During the term of this agreement,” reads the contract, “District may wish to assign additional projects, products or services to Zone6ix beyond the services outlined” in the scope of work.

Cozart noted that Zone6ix started working on Paterson sports team promotions in 2019 when it ran a “Midnight Madness” event at Eastside for the start of high school basketball practice. He also noted Zone6ix’s role in running various “showcase” events for high school athletes, which give college scouts a chance to check out possible recruits.

“He’s never asked us for any payment at all for any of these events,” Cozart told the school board.

Benjie Wimberly is the Paterson school district's $181,000-per-year recreation coordinator. Over the past decade, he has had a great deal of influence over the school board. Six of the current members gained endorsements from Wimberly or were supported by a PAC that has a connection to the assemblyman. They are board President Nakima Redmon, former President Kenneth Simmons, current Vice President Dania Martinez, Manny Martinez, Oshin Castillo and Della McCall.

The two board members who voted against the Zone6ix contract were Eddie Gonzalez and Jonathan Hodges.

“I don’t understand how a third party can charge parents without board approval,” Gonzalez said during the Nov. 13 meeting.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson, NJ: School district contract with Benjie Wimberly's son