Senator Joe Kyrillos told the Wall Street Jounral’s David Feith that he will introduce legislation this month that will legally empower parents to force administrative changes in failing schools.
“Parent Trigger” became law in California in January of this year. Under the California law, if 51% of parents in a failing school sign a petition they can force administrative changes in the school, convert the school to charter status or shut down the school entirely.
The idea was first proposed by the “liberal activists group,” Parent Revolution. Liberal or not, the idea enjoys bi-partisan support in California but is being proposed mostly by Republicans elsewhere in the country, according to the WSJ article.
Kyrillos is confident is bill will become law. He told Feith:
“If it can pass in California, it can pass anywhere,” says New Jersey State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, who plans to introduce his parent-trigger bill as soon as this month. Mr. Kyrillos is confident his bill will pass, especially since Gov. Chris Christie, a fellow Republican, committed in September to supporting the kind of parent-empowering reform that “was recently done in California.”
The Asbury Park Press reported yesterday that the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders balked at appointing Freeholder Director Lillian Burry’s choice to replace Jim Gray as Clerk of the Board.
Gray retired at the end of October. His salary was $109,748. Burry wants to replace Gray with James Stuart of Colts Neck, a semi-retired real estate appraiser, who would start the job at $60,000 if appointed.
Stuart served on the Colts Neck Township Committee with Burry. He served the township for nine years through 2008. He also had a real estate sales license that hung in Burry’s Colts Neck Realty brokerage office.
Freeholder Amy Mallet (D) slammed Burry for political patronage in proposing Stuart. That is ironic coming from Mallet, whose unsuccessful running mate, Glenn Mason, was appointed the county Emergency Management Coordinator shortly after the Democrats took control of the Freeholder Board in 2009.
Freeholder John Curley (R) raised questions about Burry’s business relationship with Stuart which were echoed by Freeholder John D’Amico (D). Freeholder Rob Clifton (R) told the APP that we would wait and see what happens.
Sources tell MMM that Clifton and D’Amico are expected to join Burry in appointing Stuart at the next Freeholder meeting on November 23 over the bi-partisan objections of Mallet and Curley.
In these times of fiscal austerity, I think it is worth questioning this appointment and all appointments. Let me emphasis that I am not taking a position, pro or con, on this appointment, at least not yet. I’m simply raising questions and encouraging others to do the same.
The first question should be “Is the position necessary?” Even if the position is required by legislation, and I don’t know if the clerk of the board position is required, the question should be asked, at all levels of government.
The Monmouth County website describes the Clerk of the Board function as follows:
The Office of the Clerk of the Board of Chosen Freeholders provides the Board with the necessary information and background material on those matters requiring its attention.
The principal activities of the Clerk of the Board are to keep a book of the minutes and a record of the orders and proceedings of the Board. The Clerk of the Board has custody of the official seal of the County and all records, documents and other official papers relating to the property and business of the County.
The functions performed by the Clerk of the Board include:
recording the official minutes of the Board
handling Board correspondence
preparing meeting agendas
processing, filing and advertising ordinances, resolutions and the county budget
serving as a liaison between the public and the Board
administering and recording oaths of office
signing official documents
attesting the signatures of officers and officials
maintaining a receipt of service of legal documents;
acting as custodian for several county departments with regard to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA)
directing correspondence and inquiries for action to various county departments
conducting business with other county departments as directed by the Board
Monmouth County’s Clerk of the Board’s office has a Deputy Clerk and three staffers. When the new clerk is hired that will be five full time people working to fulfill the prescribed functions. Record keeping and correspondence is important, but are all of those people necessary? Would there be a savings by promoting the Deputy Clerk and freezing or reducing the staff? Would the functions suffer? Does technology make record keeping and correspondence more efficient?
Another question, and this is not meant to single out Stuart, but to address widespread abuses. Is Stuart’s appointment a pension pad/grab? Does he have pension credits from his service on the Colts Neck Township Committee that would count towards years of service should he be appointed to this job. I don’t know in Stuart’s case. However such pension padding by part time elected officials has been so rampant over the years that the pension system, and abuse thereof, has obviously been a consideration when making such appointments in the past. It should also be a consideration, on the other side of the equation, going forward. If two people are equally qualified for a necessary position but one would add substantial pension costs if hired, those costs should be carefully considered in a hiring decision.
After a detente that lasted through the general election, the battle between CD-6 GOP rivals Anna Little and Diane Gooch seems to be heating up again. Little bested Gooch by 83 votes in the 6th district Republican primary last spring and went on to lose to incumbent Congressman Frank Pallone by 11%, which is the closest any Republican has come to Pallone since 1994.
Gooch didn’t exactly fade into the background after the primary, as is the custom for defeated primary candidates not named Lonegan. She stepped up her editorial writing in the TwoRiversTimes, the weekly newspaper she and her husband Mickey own. She formed Strong New Jersey, an issue advocacy organization that ran ads against John Adler in CD-3 and she funded an anti-Pallone ad for Voice for My Child.
Gooch returned the volley during this week’s edition of NJN’s On The Record with Michael Aron. She told Aron that if she felt she was the best candidate against Frank Pallone after the congressional districts are redrawn that she would run for the seat again. While praising the Tea Parties for the energy they brought to the campaign, Gooch said they made mistakes in some of the candidates they choose. She mentioned Delaware’s “I’m not a witch” Christine O’Donnell and Little as two of those mistakes.
Gooch’s appearance On the Record was broadcast this morning at 9 and 11. It will be broadcast again tomorrow at 6:30 am. As of this posting the program has not been posted on NJN’s website. If NJN’s webmaster follows the usual schedule, it will be posted here tomorrow after the final broadcast.
I wish it wasn’t necessary to keep bashing the Asbury Park Press. The Neptune Nudniks are just that bad lately. I wish Gannett would put some competent people over there. We need a good newspaper in the region. In the meantime I’ll just take my chances that Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini won’t accuse me of cyberbullying.
I’ll give the nudniks this much. Today’s paper must have been printed on recycled material. Recycled birdcage liner to be more precise. The editorial pages are full of bird bleep.
The two items I take issue with are the editorial board’s grossly inaccurate editorial, Constitutional? Not a prayer and Angelini’s OpEd touting her anti-bullying legislation.
The nudniks first. Apparently they fancy themselves experts on the Constitution and prayer. In their nudniktorial today the APP editorial board argues that prayer at public meetings violates the U.S and New Jersey Constitutions and that the ACLU should pursue their suit against the Borough of Point Pleasant Beach “vigorously” because the borough’s council has been opening meetings with a prayer with the blessing of the borough attorney.
I know I’m not an expert on the Constitution or on prayer (the APP even has the gall to say what “most religions” consider appropriate prayer). I was taught constitutional law at a Jesuit university. This much I do know. If the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the NJ Senate and the NJ Assembly all start their sessions with a prayer, which they all do, then prayer at public meetings is either not unconstitutional or the ACLU lawyers are bullies that don’t have the balls to take on the U.S. Justice Department and/or the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. They would rather take on tiny Point Pleasant Beach and other small governmental agencies who’s leaders are more likely to cave to the ACLU’s litigious bullybleep than to inflict the pain of legal fees on their already overburdened property taxpayers.
The arrogance of the editorial board is appalling. Not only do they presume to be more expert on the First Amendment than Point Pleasant Beach’s attorney, they have the audacity to judge the sincerity of the Point officials’ prayers and to use the name of the Lord to condemn the prayer. I won’t even get into their questioning whether or not the Lord really authored the Lord’s Prayer. This from the nudniks who know so much about Jesus and prayer that they invoked the Sacred Heart to praise Asbury Park’s Upstage Club, Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny.
As a service to the nudniks, I publish the text of the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for what I suspect will be their first reading:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I hope they can find someone other than ACLU bullies to explain it to them.
Regarding the nudniks’ infuriating habit of writing about religion as if they know what they are talking about, the reprobates on the editorial board should leave such writing, if they must write about it at all, to Pastor Michael Riley who is on their staff. At least Riley has a relationship with the Big Guy. If they can’t do that, they should start using Islamic rather than Christian references in their editorials. That could solve the problem permanently.
Now, about Mary Pat Angelini’s Anti-Bullying Bill; Angelini is not a nudnik nor is she a reprobate. However, her bill, as well intended as it may be, is a bad idea. Its not that bullying is not a problem, it is. It is a problem that all of us have had to deal with as part of growing up and that all children will have to learn to deal with in the future. Legislation will not change human nature and government can not solve all of our problems. Nor should it.
I’m not an expert on child development. However the lessons my father taught me about dealing with bullies, both physical and psychological lessons, prepared me for the rough and tumble of the business world and Monmouth County politics. The lesson I taught to the bully who was picking on my sister endures to this day. His nose was never the same. Growing up in the 70’s that made me a hero and gave my sister a confident sense of security throughout her adolescent years. No one ever picked on her again. Today, it would probably land an older brother a stay in the Middlesex County Youth Detention Center.
Schools administrators and faculty should not tolerate bullying. We need legislation for that? The red tape and additional personnel Angelini’s bill calls will be a waste and a burden on property taxpayers. The kids who have been victimized should be trained to be “anti-bully specialists”, like my father trained me. If parents won’t teach kids how to defend themselves, or brothers how to defend their sisters, the schools can teach the kids the art of a kick in the cogliones and how to break a nose right after the class where they learn to put a condom on a cucumber.
Another problem with the bill…how long will it take for the evil manipulative adolescents to figure out that they can cause a whole lot a grief to both their school administration and to an unfriendly teen rival by falsely claiming they’re being bullied. Ever know or hear of a kid threatening their parents with a call to DYFS?
Legislation is never going to control adolescents’ uncontrollable and natural behavior. Making school personnel responsible for managing that behavior is ludicrous. Outlawing teen suicide would be just as effective. Cheaper to enforce too.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I don’t believe bullying causes teen suicide. I was bullied and I didn’t kill myself.
I don’t mean to minimize the problem of teen suicide. I’m not an expert and I don’t know the answer. I do know that legislation that is a knee jerk reaction to a tragic and highly publicized suicide is not the answer. The answer lies in things that can’t be legislated. In families, churches, with health care professionals and even in schools. I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but I bet there was less teen suicide when there was prayer in schools. But that’s not likely to happen because no one has the cogliones to stand up to the ACLU.
On Wednesday I made the casethat the Neptune Nudniks are unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent based upon the amount of ink that gave the news of Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger’s job as Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy and the fact that he did not want his job to be an issue in his reelection campaign, vis-à-vis other stories of more consequence that they chose to ignore or bury.
Today I make the case that the APP’s coverage of the Scharfenberger story itself is unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent.
In Kevin Penton’s article, Planners question credentials of Middletown committeeman coordinating N.J. policy, and in the editorial the same daythe nudniks question Scharfenberger’s qualifications for the Director of the Office of Planning Advocacy job because he is not a certified planner. Had they done their homework, rather than go out and seek quotes from representatives of special interests, they would know that the job is an executive/administrative job, not a planning job. ” Says who?,” you might ask. Governor Jim Florio’s Attorney General’s Office. If I can find that information, why didn’t the Asbury Park Press, you should ask.
Not in the job three months yet, Scharfenberger has already saved the State $386,000, more that his annual salary X 4, according to the APP’s own account. Why are they questioning Gerry’s qualifications?
In their editorial on the matter, the nudniks argue that Governor Christie is not serious about eliminate double dipping. They use Scharfenberger’s appointment and Jackson Mayor Mike Reina’s appointment to a job at the Department of Transportation as examples. To use the APP’s own words, they are being “disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.” It is also possible that they are just plain incompetent. I don’t know which is worse, disingenuousness or incompetent…you decide.
Christie’s proposed reforms call for the end of dual office holding, i.e. the same person holding two elected offices AND prohibition of one person earning more than one government salary. Christie was clear on the campaign trail last year and has been clear in town hall meetings this year that he has no problem with government employees serving their communities in elected office, so long as they do so as volunteers. Scharfenberger was a volunteer as a member of the Middletown Township Committee before he got his new appointment. Reina gave up his salary as Mayor of Jackson after he was appointed to his job at DOT. (Though, to the APP’s credit, Reina did not give up his Jackson salary until after the nudniks brought it up…more on that and the culture of trough swillers in a soon to follow post about “greed and arrogance”).
There is no question that Scharfenberger did not want his new job to be an issue in the Middletown campaign. The APP say their reporter asked Gerry about his employer and he didn’t mention it. Scharfenberger denies this and Penton, the APP reporter who wrote two articles about the job since the election has not responded to inquiries from MMM. I believe Gerry because he was honest with me when I asked him specifically about the job over the summer. Penton either asked the wrong question or is being disingenuous at best in his reporting.
The APP says Scharfenberger not announcing the job with great fanfare was mendacity. I say it was clever and good politics. The APP’s coverage of the story and the Middletown Democrats reaction to it, since I broke it, demonstrates that Scharfenberger’s political instincts were spot on. The Dems, and the APP at their behest, have distorted the issue and misreported the facts. To his credit, Sean Byrnes, Scharfenberger’s opponent in the election told The Independent that the issue of Gerry’s job would not have changed the outcome of the election, “its not a 2000 vote issue,” Byrnes said. However, as we have seen since I broke the news of the job, the issue would have changed the tenor of the Middletown campaign. The Dems and the APP would have very likely distorted the issue, like they have since, and made the campaign about Gerry’s job, rather than about the issues pertinent to Middletown.
The nudniks conclude their editorial with a call for Scharfenberger to resign one of his positions or for Christie to either insist upon a resignation or explain why he has changed his thinking on public servants holding more than one job. That was never Christie’s thinking, and the nudniks call for Gerry’s resignation from one of the jobs is thoughtless and irresponsible given his record in Middletown and his performance in the new job so far.
Scharfenberger won re-election by a large plurality in a year with strong anti-incumbent sentiment and the local Democrats conducting a yearlong smear campaign that included stealing, smashing and defacing his campaign signs. The reason he won so big? He is clearly one of the best, most effective elected officials in the state. The residents admire his down to earth, no nonsense style and his reputation for personally contacting people who call or write to his office. Under his leadership, Middletown has one of the lowest municipal tax rates in the region, one of the smallest work forces per capita and most importantly, one of the lowest spending per capita in the state. Middletown has also been named one of the top 100 places to live in the country by Money Magazine for three years in a row of eligibility. His innovative ideas include devising one of the first municipal Green Initiatives in the state and the first municipal Veterans Affairs Committee in the state. He was also the first mayor in the state to sign his town up for the Adopt-A-Unit program, which collected tons of supplies and well wishes to our troops overseas. He has also been a tireless advocate on behalf of Middletown in fighting COAH, unfunded mandates, and excessive union contracts, among other harmful policies.
Scharfenberger is also a career volunteer who currently serves on the Middletown Landmarks Commission, the Open Space Committee, the Middletown Drug and Alcohol Alliance, and the Monmouth County Greenhouse Gas Reduction Committee. He even serves on the Township Committee as a volunteer, foregoing his salary out of respect for the taxpayers. He was recognized for his service by the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce with the Public Servant of the Year award in 2009, an honor given to Governor Christie in 2008 and Lt. Governor Guadagno in 2010.
His appointment to the position of Director of the Office For Planning Advocacy (OPA) was a brilliant move on the part of the Christie Administration. Scharfenberger brings a unique combination of municipal and professional experience to the position. Prior to serving on the Township Committee, he served on the Zoning Board of Adjustment and has served as a Landmarks Commissioner for over 14 years. As mayor, he has been involved in several major redevelopment, brownfields mitigation and development projects. He was also integral in the aquaculture study to revitalize the Bayshore and the NPP grant to revitalize North Middletown. Professionally, he is a Ph.D. with numerous professional publications who has worked on hundreds of land use projects in every county in the state for such diverse entities as the NJDOT, NPS, NJDEP, SCC, NJ Transit and dozens of private organizations. Of the past 10 directors of the OPA, Scharfenberger’s overall credentials put him at or near the top. Even with his state position, he has shown his consideration for the taxpayers of New Jersey by waiving taxpayer funded health benefits and retaining his own at a cost of $6,000 per year. He has also enrolled in the deferred compensation program, the state’s 401K which he contributes to himself.
This is who the APP wants to drive out of public service.
New Jersey – The Central Jersey Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO-CJ) is pleased to announce the program for their November Dinner Meeting and Networking, to be held on November 17, 6:00 p.m. at the Crown Palace, Marlboro, NJ. Annette Nathan, Senior Partner with Mark Kamin and Associates, Inc. will speak on the topic “Women and Wealth; Our time for Global Leadership.”
Ms. Nathan has been delivering training and development for over twenty-five years. She specializes in teamwork, communication and leadership training, and she has developed a new “wealth education” for working women, women business owners and family owned businesses. Many of clients employ her as an executive coach at the highest levels of their organization. Her engagements have ranged across a wide spectrum of businesses, communities and organizations.
Annette’s methodology focuses on cultural transformation within the institution. Using a refined and reliable methodology, Annette works with her clients to undergo a process that has the clients themselves invent new futures that are inspiring and challenging. The power of these new futures is expressed in the culture of the institution not as feelings or words alone but as action and aligned intent.
Ms. Nathan’s personal style is direct, challenging and compassionate. She is both an acute listener and a penetrating analyst of business culture. Her balance of humor and rigor enables clients to tackle and transform the most challenging aspects of their organization.
She leads a highly innovative time management and productivity workshop that “Human Resource Executive Magazine” awarded “Top Training Program of the Year” in 2003. Working inside a general framework Ms. Nathan customizes the delivery of her consulting products for the individual needs of particular clients.
Annette has traveled the world and delivered her consulting to leaders in business, education and government specifically in the countries of China, Honduras and Nigeria. She has worked with non-profit organizations committed to human development including inner-city youth, a relief organization rebuilding preschools destroyed in Bosnia and the tribal leadership of a Native American community in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Annette has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations engaged in international relief work affecting children.
Annette graduated with honors in Asian History from Duke University in 1978. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey with her husband and three children.
Registration for this event is requested by November 15. The cost to attend is $38 for members and $43 for non-members, and $5 additional will be charged for walk-ins. Visit our website at www.nawbocentraljersey to register.
The mission of the Central Jersey Chapter of NAWBO is to educate and enable women business owners to reach their full potential, to strengthen the wealth of our members, to build strategic alliances, to provide access to NAWBO’s resources for greater visibility and profitability, and to influence public policy. For more information about NAWBO Central Jersey, visit the chapter’s website at www.nawbocentraljersey.org.
Posted: November 12th, 2010 | Author:Art Gallagher | Filed under:Press Release | Tags:Annette Nathan, NAWBO, Press Release | Comments Off on National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Central Jersey Chapter Announces Program for November Dinner Meeting and Networking Event
November 11 is the day every year since 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Armistice Day.
In proclaiming the holdiay, Wilson said:
“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with lots of pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.”
On Sunday evening, November 14, Monmouth County has a special opportunity to honor and support one of our own. The family and friends of Army Spc Brendan Morocco will be hosting a Benefit Diner at the Shore Casino in Atlantic Highlands.
On Easter Sunday April 12, 2009 while returning from a night mission in Iraq, Brendan was severely injured when his vehicle sustained a direct hit aby an explosive fired projectile. He lost both arms and legs and his carotid artery was severed.
The proceeds of the event will assist Brendan by supplementing the cost of his care, medical treatment and extraordinary expenses in continually improving the quality of his life, now and in the future, including adaptive housing.
The event starts at 3PM and goes until 8PM. There will be dinner, entertainment and a silent auction. The cost is $70 per person.
If you would like to attend, or make a donation, contact Diane Carnes at 732-389-4320 or Diane.Carnes @ MACB-ESI.com or Jean Marrocco at 732-290-0637 or JMARROCCO @ AOL.com
The Neptune Nudniks’ coverage of Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger’s job as Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy, and the fact that he did not announce the job with great fanfare during the Middletown campaign for Township Committee demonstrates just how unfair and biased the Asbury Park Press is when you compare their coverage, or lack there of, to other stories of far more consequence.
All media outlets are biased. It is impossible not to be. We’re all human and have our point of view. MMM proudly declares that we are fair and biased in our logo welcoming readers to the site. Newspapers like the Asbury Park Press are disingenuous when they claim to be unbiased. The APP even claimed that they and other “real journalists” work hard to be unbiased in a editorial bashing the owners of FoxNews for donating $1 million dollars to conservative causes last summer. I say FoxNews is more trustworthy. At least they disclosed their owner’s bias. The APP, and many many others persist with their facade that they are unbiased when their behavior clearly demonstrates otherwise.
With their article and editorial today, combined with Friday’s article and Bob Ingle’s blog post on Sunday, APP.com has published 2547 words in four pieces on three separate days to the story of a volunteer Mayor who was appointed to a State job over the summer and did not make it an issue in his reelection campaign.
Contrast this to the news that Congressman Frank Pallone and three of his colleagues used their political influence to get the FDA to approve an unsafe medical device in exchange for campaign contributions. The FDA reversed itself after an internal investigation. The issue was national news for a few days. But not for the Asbury Park Press and their sister papers that cover the 6th congressional district. Three days after the Kansas City Star published the story of Pallone and his crooked cronies putting Americans’ health at risk in exchange for campaign cash, the APP published one articleof 619 words with a pro-Pallone spin. Ingle added 194 words with the appropriate slant two days later.
The APP is unfair and biased in what they cover and it how they cover it.
The same reporter, Kevin Penton, wrote the Pallone/FDA story and the Scharfenberger stories.
Referring to the report that exposed the Pallone/FDA scandal, Penton wrote “The report — the result of an investigation requested in May 2009 by three congressmen, including Pallone — does not specify who in Congress made the persistent inquiries.” There was no further follow up published by Penton or anyone else from the APP.
Yet, Penton spent all day yesterday on the phone and on his computer keeping the Scharfenberger story alive. All those people Penton quoted in his article today…do you think they called him? Do you think they were even aware that Scharfenberger is the Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy? Of course not. Penton made thestory. At least we know he has it in him to do some follow up. It is too bad that he, and his bosses, are unfair and biased about the stories that they actually decide to put work into, as opposed to what they often do, which is regurgitate what the subjects of their “news” tell them.
Penton’s article and the editorial state that Scharfenberger was asked about his employment in October and did not mention the State job. Neither Penton nor the editorial name the reporter. Scharfenberger denies this. He told MMM that he had not spoken to Penton about his job since July, before he was hired by the Christie administration. Penton has not responded to a phone call and an email from MMM to either verify or dispute Scharfenberger’s account. Scharfenberger said he was very careful to be truthful during the campaign in how he answered inquiries about his employment with reporters and members of the public in general.
Scharfenberger knew his state job was common knowledge in certain circles but he did not want it to become a campaign issue. “What was I going to do, go around town saying ‘vote for me, the Governor thinks I’m so great he hired me’?” “I did not want to use the job in my favor and I did not want the Democrats to use it against me. I wanted the campaign to be about Middletown issues, not who I work for.”
Scharfenberger’s account is consistent with my experience. I knew about Scharfenberger’s job in late August or early September. I chose not to report it. I did not find out about the job from Scharfenberger. He was not happy when I asked him to confirm it. He assumed I would report on it.
I’m not a full time journalist. I haven’t taken a journalism course since I was in high school writing for Bear Facts, the Bergenfield High School newspaper. Why did I know about Gerry’s job and full time journalists didn’t? Google has this neat service called “Google Alert.” Penton and the folks over in Neptune should check it out. I received anecdotal confirmation of Gerry’s job before I asked him about it.
I chose not to report about Scharfenberger’s job until after the election because, after observing the Middletown Democrats over the last 13 years I suspected they would distort it and make the campaign about it, rather than the issues facing Middletown. Feel free to criticise me for not reporting it. I told you I was fair and biased the moment you got here. If you’re going to criticise me, please also credit me for my competence. The APP and the Middletown Democrats, and maybe even you, still wouldn’t know about Gerry’s job if I hadn’t reported it.
To prove that I am fair as well as biased, I now disclose that I am aware of two elected officials in Monmouth County, one Democrat and one Republican, who have full time state jobs and are still collecting their stipends from the municipalities that they serve. The Democrat I found about last week. The Republican this morning. I’m not going to tell you who they are, at least not right now. Now that they know that I know, they have a few days to do the right thing and heed the spirit of Governor Christie’s call for reform and only collect one government salary. I also want to see if the Neptune Nudniks have what it takes to find out what I already know, or if they care.
There’s a video on YouTube which is a good analogy for how Scharfenberger handled his job during the campaign. You may have seen it already as it has over 6 million views. Here it is:
In the video, consider Scharfenberger the quarterback and the Middletown Democrats and the Neptune Nudniks the yellow shirted defense. Did the quarterback do anything illegal? No. Did he do anything unethical? No. Was he clever? Yes. Is clever bad? If you laughed at the video, you don’t think so.
Had the yellow shirted defense been rigorous and paying attention, the quarterback would have looked like a fool. As it was, and as it is in the case of Middletown and the APP, the nudniks are foolish.
