Guadagno’s Worrisome Record as Sheriff of Monmouth County

The following was written by former Monmouth County Freeholder John D'Amico and was published last week on Insidernj.com. As we head to the polls tomorrow Kim Guadagno's shady actions as Monmouth County Sheriff should be in voters minds before casting a vote for her:


By John DAmico
October 31, 2017,
 INSIDERNJ

Kim Guadagno dodges responsibility for the failures of the Christie Administration by alternately hiding behind or blaming the Governor.  But she cannot hide from her record of dishonesty as Monmouth County Sheriff.

Kim Guadagno and Gov. Christie

In 2009, to cover a large budget deficit resulting from the recession, the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders, of which I was a member, froze the wages of non-union county employees and asked the unions to agree to a wage freeze. Failing such an agreement, some union members would have to be laid off.

The Freeholders asked Sheriff Guadagno to persuade the unions representing her sheriff’s officers and corrections officers to accept the freeze.  She refused to cooperate, predicting that the savings anticipated from a wage freeze or offsetting layoffs would be lost because she was going to use overtime to continue running the jail, serve warrants, and discharge other functions.  When invited to comment on her budget at a public meeting, she turned her back on the Freeholders and told the hundreds of union members present that they were right to object to the freeze and the Freeholders were wrong. (Asbury Park Press, 7/21/09).

The Sheriff’s unions rejected the freeze, and fourteen of their least senior members with young families were laid off. In addition, Guadagno laid off process servers who had agreed to the freeze and replaced them with higher paid personnel.  After intervention by the county administrator and attorneys, the process servers were reinstated (APP, 7/27/09).  Despite Guadagno’s machinations, the county ultimately did realize salary and fringe benefit savings in the Sheriff’s budget (APP, 10/1/09).

At her first press conference as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Guadagno said, “I can tell you that I’m probably the only elected public official who had to stand toe-to- toe, eye-to- eye and negotiate with unions.”  The truth is she was playing footsie with them. At a closed Freeholder meeting earlier in the year, the Republican County Administrator and County Counsel had recommended that the Freeholders pull operation of the jail and youth detention center from Guadagno because of “complaints and concerns relative to the …performance of her duties and lack of responsiveness to the Freeholders” and her close alignment with labor unions in opposing payroll cuts. (APP, 9/30/09).

Angered by these episodes, a Republican blogger wrote “it is common knowledge that Guadagno made the union men and women feel as if she was 100%  PRO them. Then after the smoke clears and she is running with Christie she publicly states that she fought hard to suppress the unions she was protecting.  She still makes 110K as sheriff….What do the laid off workers have?  Sheriff Guadagno is a fraud.”  (PA_TH_TIC, 9/30/09).

This history of shady behavior by former Sheriff Kim Guadagno, strikingly similar in many respects to that of President Donald Trump, is worrisome and calls to mind the warning in the following Bible verse: “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.” (Luke 16:10, New Living Translation).

Thanks Liberals

Thank your local Liberals who really did make America great, not just for a few, but for all.

A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

As posted on AddictingInfo.com

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards.

He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised. All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

Patrick Murray: Conflicting Polls on the Teachers' Union? Not Really.

Patrick Murray, who is the founding director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute and is a frequent media commentator on politics and public opinion, has posted on his blog an explanation for the seemingly conflicting poll results that were released last week dealing with Governor Christie's budget, school aid cuts and state unions. He points out that even though the three polls seem to tell conflicting storys. they don't. The separate polls "really tell separate pieces of a cohesive – but nuanced – story."

Here's what he has to say:

A trio of polls were released last week on Governor Chris Christie’s budget, particularly focusing on school aid cuts and state unions. According to at least one report, these polls were “seemingly at odds” with one another (also here). But if you look at what the three polls actually asked, they really tell separate pieces of a cohesive – but nuanced – story.

The Eagleton Poll (and here) found 57% of New Jerseyans feel that school aid should not be cut and 72% are opposed to “making it easier” to lay off teachers to solve local budget problems.

The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll found 68% of the public see the cuts as being unfair to some groups (with teachers being among the top “victims”) and Governor Christie is seen as the more negative party in the NJEA dust-up, and ultimately more responsible for the impending teacher layoffs.

The Rasmussen Poll found 65% of likely voters favor having school employees (including teachers, administrators and other workers) take a one year wage freeze to help make up for the deficit in state funding.

I really don’t find anything too contradictory in those results. Public opinion is rarely black and white (as national polling about the health reform debate dramatically illustrates). The real difference in these three polls is that each chose to cover a different facet of the issue.

Both the Eagleton and Monmouth polls asked residents about their opinion of the governor’s proposed budget and how it will affect them personally.

Eagleton also asked quite a few questions about what areas of the budget should or should not be cut and what, if any, tax increases the public is willing to accept in order to avoid those cuts (none, apparently).

Monmouth’s survey included questions on impressions of Christie’s budget in comparison to Jon Corzine’s first budget (trends are a wonderful tool for providing context) and a focus on communication with the general public, including the NJEA battle and reaction to key terms used to describe the budget (e.g. “tough” and “fair”).

Rasmussen’s poll asked four questions, mainly focused on state worker concessions to deal with the budget crisis.

In terms of election polling, Rasmussen has a very good track record and, by my reckoning, had the most accurate final pre-election poll in last year’s gubernatorial race. [And admittedly, Monmouth, along with Zogby, YouGov, and Democracy Corp, came up with the wrong end of the stick in the final days of that campaign. Eagleton did not issue a final election poll.]...

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