Letter: Brookdale Cannot Be Saved Due To Politics And Corruption, Should Be Merged With Ocean C.C.

The expressed opinions or views of this letter does not necessarily represent the opinion of the MiddletownMike blog:

Dear Editor,

Convicted Felon Peter F. Burnham, the former President of Brookdale Community College (Monmouth County) has now been released to serve out the remainder of his five-year sentence for felony official misconduct and theft by deception, for stealing college funds, under parole supervision.

Regardless of where Burnham is now, the county college has been faced with some pretty serious financial problems that likely would not be there had Burnham managed the public monies entrusted to his oversight properly, as he was well paid to do. The college is now facing a massive restructuring that would result in 210 employee positions being slashed.

Former Brookdale Board of Trustees Chairman, Howard Birdsall, who served 20 years on the Brookdale Board, is currently awaiting trial on criminal charges for violating the state’s pay-to-play laws in his role as CEO of Birdsall Engineering, a firm with major public contracts all over New Jersey.

The college’s building Larrison Hall is named after a Monmouth County Freeholder who died under indictment for taking bribes.

Brookdale suspiciously had a campus in Guayaquil, Ecuador during the 1980s and 1990s. Ecaudor is a country with a U.S. dollar banking system that has little anti-money laundering oversight and a massive amount of cocaine trafficking taking place within it's borders. Why a county-funded New Jersey Community College would seek to locate a campus there is highly suspect.

Brookdale is currently facing massive faculty and staff layoffs. The students and educators are the real victims of Burnham-Birdsall mismanagement that is typical New Jersey fraud and corruption.

Brookdale cannot be saved. Brookdale's executive staff should be fired and the institution merged into Ocean County College.

Eric Hafner
Toms River NJ,