Campaign season is well upon us, and with it, the usual barrage of smoke and mirrors to sway the taxpayer’s opinion with misdirection, half-truths, and outright lies. In the interest of providing a fuller picture, heightsonline decodes the statements made in a recent mailing from the Spring Lake Heights Democratic candidates:
1.) SLH DEM STATEMENT: Spring Lake Heights usually has over $4,000,000 in its various bank accounts but can’t pay its bills because it does not have the qualified personnel. The recently hired Borough Clerk has quit, the Chief Financial Officer has quit. The Borough office is understaffed and in turmoil.
Let’s take that statement and break it down into smaller chunks:
SLH DEM STATEMENT: Spring Lake Heights usually has over $4,000,000 in its various bank accounts but can’t pay its bills because it does not have the qualified personnel.
FACT: While there has been turn-over in the Borough Hall office, the Borough is not going bankrupt. The Borough is paying its bills. A certified municipal CFO is needed to legally carry out financial issues. The Borough Council named a temporary CFO and has retained a consultant with the necessary certification so that all financial matters will be attended to while a job search is conducted for a new CFO. Additionally, this gives the Council time to evaluate whether or not a full-time or a part-time CFO is required.
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The recently hired Borough Clerk has quit:
FACT: Richard Kachmar, the former Borough Administrator of Plumsted Township who was also a certified municipal clerk, was hired for $53,000 a year as borough clerk. Kachmar subsequently was offered the position of Borough Administrator in Sea Bright at the annual salary of $65,000. The council Democrats then supported the appointment of the deputy clerk, who is not certified, into the position of Acting Borough Clerk and then attempted to give her an almost $15,000 a year raise in the 2011 Salary & Wage Ordinance. Interesting that this salary increase was NOT opposed by Councilman Tom Vorbach, who in 2010 circulated his “Let’s Those Who Pay Have a Say” anti-salary & wage increase petitions to break signed contracts with existing Borough employees.
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The Chief Financial Officer has quit:
FACT: Colleen Lapp, a certified municipal chief financial officer, was paid $70,000 by SLH. She had not received a raise from SLH during the past 4 years. She was offered the position of CFO by the City of Red Bank where she is paid $93,000 annually with a five week vacation.
At no time was the CFO position left vacant without a plan. Initially, Ms. Lapp agreed to stay on part time so that the Borough could fulfill its obligation to have a certified CFO. When she could not stay on due to her new work load, she recommended using the firm the Borough has now contracted with. Contractor and temp firms providing CFO services are working all over the state, but Mayor Enright felt it necessary to involve the Borough Attorney and to contact the Department of Community Affairs in Trenton in an apparent effort to derail the Council’s appointment of the temporary CFO and the certified contractor.
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The Borough office is understaffed and in turmoil:
FACT: All positions are currently filled, either by Borough employees or contractors. To expand the staff, the Borough Council would need to create new positions, something that taxpayers have soundly criticized doing in the past. If any employee is complaining of “turmoil” in the office, it has not been brought to the attention of the Council.
2.) SLH DEM STATEMENT: During the snow storm in December 2010 Spring Lake Heights did not have the equipment to deal with the problems. The current council can’t agree to purchase the proper equipment. They have waited until September 2011 to get the funding in place to begin the purchasing process with could take another four months.
Again, let’s break that down:
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The current council can’t agree to purchase the proper equipment.
FACT: The current council on September 26, 2011 voted to approve the bonding issue for new equipment, something the Democrats had been adamantly opposed to all during the 2011 year. Department heads have been requesting this new equipment for years but have not been able to get a consensus vote from previous councils. See for yourself: Please view the YouTube videos of the July 25, 2011 Council meeting to determine who REALLY tried to block the bonding for new equipment, preferring instead to have the taxpayers pay for it in a lump sum. It was not the Republican majority who couldn’t agree.
3.) SLH DEM STATEMENT: The recreation committee, which consists of only two people – current council members Maccanico and Diver, gave pay raises to the 2011 part-time recreation employees who now make more than our hard working crossing guards.
And, broken down:
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The recreation committee, which consists of only two people – current council members Maccanico and Diver
FACT: The Recreation Committee is a Council committee, and all council committees have two members to avoid any conflict with the Open Public Meetings Act. Any resident who would like to volunteer to support the committee is more than welcome to do so.
STATEMENT: … gave pay raises to the 2011 part-time recreation employees…
FACT: An outright lie concerning Recreation. Recreation salaries had been reduced and a miscalculation occurred. The so-called “raises” were adjustments of .25 cents made to bring 3 salaries in compliance with the Salary & Wage Ordinance. Otherwise, the taxpayers would have had to eat the cost of passing an updated ordinance. Additionally, the Democrats’ literature neglects to mention that one of the 3 employees then left and was replaced with a new employee in a lower starting wage category, $4.00 per hour less than the more-experienced previous employee.
Since 2010, recreation employees are paid from the Recreation Trust Fund. The Recreation Trust Fund is self-sufficient and does not cost the taxpayers anything. It is funded through the fees paid for participation in Recreation programs. As opposed to the crossing guards, who do not produce revenue but who are paid out of the police budget.
Also, after the Borough Auditor discovered discrepancies in how recreation employees were being paid, all employees were switched to a “per hour” pay amount, rather than a flat salary. This actually lowered the overall amount that many individuals were being paid in past years.
Recreation staff work approximately 6 weeks out of the year, between 3 and 5 days a week, from 8:30 AM until Noon.
STATEMENT: … who now make more than our hard working crossing guards
FACT: First of all, this implies that the crossing guards work hard and the recreation staff does not, which is patently false. As for the “hard working crossing guards,” who are paid $13.30 per hour, at the September 12, 2011 meeting, a resolution appointing a new crossing guard was tabled when it was discovered that the job would be given to Democratic candidate Hugh Meehan. Hiring a partisan political candidate into any government job paid by the taxpayers is a direct violation of the federal Hatch Act (see the YouTube video of the Sept. 12 meeting).
4.) SLH DEM STATEMENT: The current council is attempting to dissolve the Spring Lake Heights fire district. While dissolving the fire district their actions of refusing to pay the fire district the legally obligated monies raised by taxation and trying to engage the over-extended volunteer fire companies from surrounding municipalities could result in the bankruptcy of the Spring Lake Heights Volunteer Fire Company that has served our town for over fifty years.
The majority on the current council has stripped the Mayor’s authority to manage the town effectually. In a recent editorial of the Coast Star newspaper has described the current council as “… incapable of working together to efficiently run the town.”
And, the break-down:
SLH DEM STATEMENT: The majority on the current council has stripped the Mayor’s authority
FACT: In the Borough form of government, the authority to manage the town rests with the Council, not the Mayor. That is why the borough form is also called the “weak mayor” form of government. The Council, in attempting to do their statutory job, has been blindsided by the machinations of the Mayor, who apparently believes herself to have far more power than she does (see the heightsonline page, “Civics 101,” for the statutes listing the duties of the mayor and the duties of the Council in the Borough form of government).
SLH DEM STATEMENT: a recent editorial of the Coast Star newspaper…
FACT: The Coast Star editorial cited here also said that the SLH Fire District is a “seriously broken machine” and stated that all of the current fire commissioners (including Democratic Council candidate Hugh Meehan) should resign immediately and that the new commissioners should “vow complete transparency and openness.” The editorial points out that “Transparency is also sometimes a problem … where fire district commissioners blatantly ignored repeated requests from the governing body for detailed information on how, exactly, the taxpayers’ money was being spent.”
