At tonight's meeting of the Middeltown Township Committee, the long anticipated replacement for Steve Massell will be appointed to finish his unexpired term.
For those not familiar, Committeeman Steve Massell, a realtor by profession, accepted an appointment as a Commissioner of the Monmouth County Tax Board a few months back, but didn't officially resign from the Township Committee until last month. His new job is a paid position and reeks of patronage and cronyism.
The Middletown Republican Executive Committee presented the names of Patricia Snell, Anthony (Tony) Perry and Chris Aveta to the Township Committee, for consideration to replace Steve Massell, at the meeting tonight.
Who are these people you ask?
Not much is known about Patricia Snell other than she is a local realtor who seems to be relatively new to Middletown. Voting records indicated that she's only lived in town since 2012.
People familiar with the Middletown Board of Education, will recognize the name of Chris Aveta. Aveta is a longtime friend of Tony Fiore and both moved from Carteret to Middletown around the same time. He served 1 term on the board of education before being voted off by residents. He then spent the next two election cycles trying to get reelected to no avail. He was seen by many to be divisive and counterproductive. He wasn't an advocate for the students, rather he was a proponent for cutting the school budget under the mantra of "taxpayers" first. Sound familiar?
Anthony Perry's claim to fame according to his LinkedIn profile is that he is currently the Chief of Staff of State Senator Joe Kyrillos as well as being a member of the Middletown Planning Board. Not listed on LinkedIn, but I believe it's so, he is also a member of the Middletown Library Board.
What I see however, as Tony Perry's biggest accomplishment and advantage that makes him the front runner in replacing Steve Massell as a member of the Township Committee, is that he married Gerry Scharfenberger's daughter! That's right, he is the son-in-law of current mayor, Gerry Scharfenberger.
Talk about cronyism with a sprinkle of nepotism thrown in. It's truly outrageous. Should Scharfenberger to even vote on this? Isn't it a conflict he should abstain from? Seems a bit unethical if he doesn't.
It just goes to show you that the Republicans in Middletown have been unchecked and in charge for far too long here in town. To even consider this, is to spit in the face of residents and shows that they feel entitled to do whatever they want whenever they wish to do it.
Out of the three choices, I vote for Patricia Snell. Sometimes the less we know about a person the better.
Here is the Agenda for tonight's meeting.
15 comments:
You talk about "claim to fame". What exactly was Tricia McGuire's claim to fame that qualified her for Township Committee. Yoga teacher?
Read her bio at voteforTricia.Com
Vote4tricia.com
I bet in her 5 years here Pat Snell voted more than Tricia Maguire
This is nasty. It seems as if the Middletown Republicans are so desperate that they have resorted to importing a metrosexual nobody from Burlington County to run the town. If this is all we know about Tony Perry then we know for certain that his biggest career move was marrying the daughter of the mayor! Scharfenberger made his family rich off his power (lives in multi-million dollar home) and now he is appointing his family to solidify his rule. This is not a democracy, this is a Monarchy and Oligarchy. My question is will the residents ever get to vote on this entitled loser or is appointment permanent? A Democrat could defeat him easily if he needs to run in an election he has too much baggage. Perry is a title chaser who will ruin our town. This is a scandal if I've ever seen one before. I don't see re-election happening for any of the people involved. It's shocking to think they even had the guts to do something like this! Sad way for Scharfenberger to end his career.
This is nasty. It seems as if the Middletown Republicans are so desperate that they have resorted to importing a metrosexual nobody from Burlington County to run the town. If this is all we know about Tony Perry then we know for certain that his biggest career move was marrying the daughter of the mayor! Scharfenberger made his family rich off his power (lives in multi-million dollar home) and now he is appointing his family to solidify his rule. This is not a democracy, this is a Monarchy and Oligarchy. My question is will the residents ever get to vote on this entitled loser or is appointment permanent? A Democrat could defeat him easily if he needs to run in an election he has too much baggage. Perry is a title chaser who will ruin our town. This is a scandal if I've ever seen one before. I don't see re-election happening for any of the people involved. It's shocking to think they even had the guts to do something like this! Sad way for Scharfenberger to end his career.
This is nasty. If this is all we know about Tony Perry then we know for certain that his biggest career move was marrying the daughter of the mayor! Scharfenberger made his family rich off his power (lives in multi-million dollar home) and now he is appointing his family to solidify his rule. This is not a democracy, this is a Monarchy and Oligarchy. My question is will the residents ever get to vote on this entitled loser or is appointment permanent? A Democrat could defeat him easily if he needs to run in an election he has too much baggage. Perry is a title chaser who will ruin our town. This is a scandal if I've ever seen one before. It's shocking to think they even had the guts to do something like this! Sad way for Scharfenberger to end his career.
Pat Snell is one of the best people i know! I’d vote for her in a heartbeat.
So if Scharfenberger's daughter gets pregnant, will another Township Committeeman be born?? The bottom line is Middletown does not want Tony Perry so why are we being force fed him? The reasoning for anointing him was that he had 'great experience'. He was handed that too! Scharfenberger has close ties with Governor Christie, Poof! Perry has a job. Scharfenberger has close ties with Senator Kyrillos, Poof! Perry has a job. Scharfenberger is Mayor of Middletown, Poof! Perry has a seat on the Planning Board and is Pres of Library Board. This is laughable! It's a miracle that this imbred from South Jersey struggled his whole life working hard and made the treacherous voyage up to Middletown and is suddenly the most successful person on Earth. What a joke. This is an incapable loser who obviously can't get anything without help from powerful daddy-in-law.
For better or worse, the procedure for replacing a member of the Township Committee, that is, three people nominated by the party and then a vote from the Committee, has been followed.
The citizens of Middletown will have the chance to vote to either replace Mr. Perry or give him a full three year term next November, again, in accordance with the process. In fact, someone can even run against Mr. Perry in the GOP primary, but that is unlikely.
So, why this little bit if angst when the TC has followed a process that they are entitled to follow? Don't like it? Get elected to the TC and change the way they do things.
In the meantime, Mr. Perry is young, educated, politically savvy and motivated. Can that really be all that bad for the town?
The current mayor( who was not elected by the people) may well be unemployed in January in Trenton when the new governor takes office. Being Christie's buddy won't get him anything anymore and Kyrillos will be gone also !! The Dems will rule in Trenton and we will be rid of C. Christie and all his self serving bullies and butt kissers Remember when Christie took office ,the outrageous behavior of Scharfey and the Middletown Township republican clowns serving with him ?
Scharfenberger is no better than what we see nationally and we all know how rotten to the core the situation in the White House is... nepotism ad nauseate. Integrity and honesty are not virtues defined by the republican party of today. Not sure there is a capable,qualified crony left in this town....or in D.C. for that matter !
Government is supposed to be "of the people,by the people and for the people " not the party !!!!
With the population in Middletown of nearly 70,000 residents there has GOT to be a qualified candidate that is NOT Gerry Scharfenberger's son-in-law !! Peter Carton, is this the best you can do ?????????
How wonderful for Jared! I'm sure his qualifications are awesome.
BTW, whether one is for or against the JCPL reliability project, the fact is that Scarfenberger made it clear in an article from last year that he is especially concerned since his daughter purchased a house along the proposed corridor. No one wants to say a peep lest the RAGE folks attack, but the fact is our tax dollars are going to the usual politically connected consultants to fight this project, with no one saying a peep. I wish I had my neighbor's tax dollars to fight everything I want changed in my daughter's neighborhood.
Christie may go, but the Christie crony train chugs on and on and on.......
So Massell timed his official resignation to ensure the crowning of Perry came after the election. And with an extra bonus for Gerry...his daughter won’t be whining during Thanksgiving dinner.
Aveta ran for the BOE because he thought that it would be a stepping stone to where he really wants to be, on the Township Committee. So the committee backed him for the BOE even though they never had any intentions of letting him be on the committee. Case in point; they just threw him under the bus in favor of Scarfy’s son-in-law even after he worked for them on the BOE. They used him to do their dirty work and if he has a living brain cell left, which is questionable, he should realize by now that they used him and are stringing him along so that they can use him again. When Aveta was on the BOE he headed the finance committee and was responsible for the district’s inability to hire teachers when they were needed. Yes, he put the taxpayers first.
Similarly, the Committee changed the makeup of the library board by adding to the number of board members so that they could appoint their minions and take control of the library finances. It was taxpayers first again.
Now we have three new BOE members who ran on a platform of putting the taxpayers first. When board members are sworn in they raise their right hand and take an oath to make all of their decisions based on what is best for the students. Why on earth would anyone vote for someone who made the basis of their campaign a policy to violate the oath they were about to take to put our children first?
Our current Committee has attempted to politicize the BOE and they have succeeded in politicizing the library board.
What our shamelessly self-serving township committee is banking on is that we taxpayers will never put two and two together and figure out that when they say that they are going to put the “Taxpayers First”, what they are really doing, time after time, is furthering their own political ambitions by putting our children last.
We all care about our taxes, but not as much as we care about our children. When the people in town wake up to the fact that our current Committee members are wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing who are putting themselves ahead of our kids, we will finally be able to send them packing.
Hey stupid, Gerry's son-in-law's name is Tony Perry, not Jared. That's the idiot in the WH's son-in-law !!
God help us all with this pathetic bunch of questionable characters in this country, this county and this community.Hope they find enough to charge the ones in D.C. guilty of treason.Teach the orange julius a lesson.
As for the clowns in Middletown, when the people in town get fed up enough they will vote this crowd out. Middletown becomes more like New York everyday.... former Brooklyn and Staten Island residents are everywhere here and they are mostly democrats. You can see the change coming. Maybe Gerry and his pals should relocate to somewhere else and take Peter with them.
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