This letter appears online today at the Atlantic Highlands Herald
I urge the election of Linda Baum to the Middletown township committee because she is intelligent and possesses sharp, sound financial acumen, while the opposition Republican campaign is morally bankrupt. Mr. Massell has claimed to be eager to find waste in Middletown government spending. Since his party has had unbroken control for a generation, one would believe that the present administration is responsible for remaining waste. He claims to have saved Middletown money by single-stream recycling. However, Middletown was late to adopt this practice which became available through enormous equipment investments by recycling companies, not by municipal action. Massell claims that the township’s sale of the swim club was a win for the taxpayers, but he is part of the same organization that acclaimed the benefit given to Middletown by its purchase some years ago. Obviously, he implies they made a mistake by buying the swim club in the first place.
The worst of the misdeeds of the present administration is the destruction of an independent Middletown Library board of trustees and their replacement by political tools. The new board members are largely drawn from the Middletown Republican County Committee and follow the dictates of the township committee. After the township committee raided the library last year for about $500,000 of its surplus, funds raised almost entirely from non-municipal sources, the new board has continued the depletion of the library’s reserves, monies accumulated for needed repairs and capital improvements, expenses that had been previously paid by township appropriation. In addition, the new library board has acquiesced to inappropriate township charge backs for which they receive either no justification or an inadequate accounting. In an area where I have expertise, property and casualty insurance, the township’s excessive charge back is tantamount to theft by the municipality of funds from an organization where state-mandated funding is designed to remove the library from political manipulation. The township committee has put in place actions that will destroy the standard of library service that Middletown residents have enjoyed for many years.
Ms. Baum’s long experience in finance and her intelligence make her clearly qualified to serve the township. Her willingness to speak out over irregularities in the present administration’s conduct of its affairs demonstrates that her voice will be heard over the self-serving dealings of a one-party machine.
Randall Gabrielan
Middletown, NJ
8 comments:
Didn't this guy resign from the board a few months ago.
I didn't have to read your article Mike. I am a lifelong Republican and I decided that I could not vote for the Republicans in Middletown this year for precisely this reason.
This was a witch hunt and a ruthless money grab with no regard for a man who dedicated his life to our library.
I want to know who was paid to sort through all those records.
(Maybe I should have read your article but I'm guessing by the headline what it was about)
Anon 12:40a.m.,
Aren't you sleep deprived ? Randall Gabrielan was driven from the library board by the ruthless,incompetent,money grabbers that are lousy TC members and that lousy.uncouth lawyer! That bunch is good at distorting the truth.
The people in this town have to have more intelligence than to perpetuate these insults against all of us.
Mr. Gabriellan resigned because he was personally profiting from the actions of the Library Board he presided over.
He neither recused himslef from the votes to buy his books, nor did he refrain from approving the purchase orders that paid him directly.
He comments on "inappropriate chargebacks" that have been appoved by the current Library Boar when he has no idea what the justification for those charges are, seeing as how he is no longer "in the loop" and was apparently not privy to the information given to the LB that led them to approve the charges.
The TC apparently felt that the LB was taking advantage of the taxpayers in Middletown, so they took the actions that were available to them to reassert logical management.
Rather than stay and fight for his beliefs, this man qut and walked away under a cloud and now wants to snipe from outside the process.
One hasto doubt whether he really has the interests of the Library in mind - or simply his own overlarge ego.
He was targeted by our Mayor because he wanted him off the board so that they could take money that had been set aside for maintenance and improvements of the library and use it to balance the municipal budget.
He resigned because he was guilty of a technicality. It wasn't because his books were being sold to the library, they are very popular books which he sold at a discount to the library.
He signed the invoice for his books. That's it, that the only mistake he made. If he didn't sign it, someone else would have. There are no claims that he did anything inappropriate aside from his signature on an invoice. He didn't try to hide the fact that he signed the invoice, he made a mistake.
And for that he was forced to resign from the Library board that he had VOLUNTEERED his services to for decades.
This was a crime and a shame and Tony Fiore should be ashamed for what he did to this man. I am a Republican and I will be voting Democratic for the first time in my life. I don't care who is running, I won't be voting for anyone, I will be voting against the mayor.
http://www.middletowndemocrat.org/baum20120419.html
The above article discusses the issues in the matter of Mr. Gabrielan’s resignation and puts to rest the accusation of wrong doing. He was targeted with the intent of gaining control of the now 9-member board, which has 8 new members this year, 5 of whom are GOP district committee people. Five out of 9 gives our current Republican Twp administration majority control of the board and our Library funds. Our Twp Committee has claimed that the addition of two new seats to the board this year –increasing the board’s membership from 7 to 9 -- was about participation. However, their appointment choices have clearly excluded the vast majority of the public from the process and suggest another purpose altogether.
Here is a link to the June 7th chargeback letter and summary of charges:
http://ia601209.us.archive.org/25/items/MiddletownTownshipChargebackLetter6712/DOC062112.pdf
It is ridiculous to say that Mr. Gabrielan has no idea what the justification for the charges is because the second page of the letter shows the Township’s analysis, which is riddled with errors and poor logic that result in substantial overcharges to our Library. And that is not just an opinion, but rather is fact. The Township’s analysis is so faulty, in fact, that the members of the Library Board are seriously remiss in their duty as library trustees by ignoring it. I can’t get into a detailed description of those errors here, but I will name one very big one – the $8,550,000 budget figure for health benefits does NOT reflect a reduction for employee contributions. That means the library is being made to pay amounts that are ALREADY being paid by employees. Note that the Township likes to confuse the issue by saying that employee health care contributions are reflected as a revenue item in the Twp’s budget. True, but they are not reflected ANYWHERE in the Library’s budget. The place to reflect them was in the chargeback analysis – the $8.55M figure should have reduced to reflect them. The library trustees have been made aware of this and other problems with the Twp’s analysis.
The result is that last year’s well publicized $500K transfer was followed by the pillage of several hundred thousand more this year, wiping out ALL library reserves and digging into the materials budget. Add to that that 2013 projected revenues are down due to lower assessments. Our Library is now in trouble. Remember that the Library cannot increase its revenues each year like the Township can because the library tax rate is fixed. Library revenue fluctuates with assessments – and so can go down – which is why our Library needs to have some reserves. But the reserves have now been wiped out.
Shortly after the election, I am certain you will be hearing that library hours of operations are being cut, or more likely that branches will close. And I am also sure you will hear the familiar refrain “these are hard economic times”, which rings hollow while the current Twp administration fails to implement significant cost-saving measures for taxpayers.
Linda,
Is it possible that the laws that protect library service are being violated by this crop of Republicans and if so who do we appeal to in order to help the residents of Middletown ? That lawyer we have is useless and in constant conflict of interest with the people he is paid to represent. Politics before expertise is the forte.
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