Taxes and Middletown, Perfect Together

As anyone who follow this blog knows, I am no fan of the Middeltown GOP and their bond, spend ,tax and then blame others, policies. 

Since late February, I have been pointing out that the Middletown Republicans, who have controlled  the township committee for the past 20 some odd years, have been planning a 9.2% municipal tax increase this year in order to plug a $2.4 million hole in the township budget that has not been adopted yet. This budget shortfall is approximately the same as last years, when the township used  a couple of one shot revenue gimmicks in addition to a 7.2% tax increase balance the budget.

In order to keep Middletown running for the past 5+ months, temporary budget resolutions have needed to be passed by the township committee. At last count, nearly 50% of  the expected operating expenses for the township for fiscal year 2009 have already been spent or have been allocated  to be spent. 

Now, how will it be possible to cut $2.4 million from the last remaining 50% of budget to avoid a 9.2% rate increase?  You can't, unless your willing make very hard choices. Choices that the Republicans in town have refused to make for the past 20 something years.

That is why, with this years increase, Middletown's tax rate will have risen 25% over the past 4 years.

At some point you need to look in the mirror and stop blaming others for your short comings. 

Like Middletown, other municipalities around that state, as well as along the bayshore, have been saddled with reduced aid and unfunded mandates from Trenton. However the impact has not had nearly the same adverse effects as here, because instead of blaming others, these towns  looked at themselves and made choices that dealt with the problem instead of playing the avoid and blame game. 

There are two other very good posts today from Pat Walsh's Middletown Musings blog and Matt Morehead's A Voice for Youth blog that address Middletown's budget dealings. 

Walsh's talks about the townships use of deferred school board taxes, while Morehead's post asks why other towns in the area have been able to keep their tax rate stable while Middletowns has skyrocketed. 

    

Now it's the community's job to cut the township budget ???

If you are a Middletown resident then you must again take a look at Pat Walsh's Middletown Musings blog.

Pat responds to the township press release of April 24th, were the Mayor stated that  she and the Township Committee are committeed to seek further reductions in the 2009 proposed budget.

The one problem though is that Mayor Pam wants the residents to come up with further budget cuts themselves so that she and her GOP buddies cans wipe their grubby little fingers clean of a 9.2% tax increase.

For some one who promised to be fiscally conservative and campaigned on a platform to Not raise taxes, Pam Brightbill has done just that in her 4 years on the committee.  When this rate increase goes into responsible effect on July 1st, Pam and Co. will have risen the municipal tax rate by 25% during her time in office.

  

The Skeletons in Christie's Closet: When is a Prosecutor Not a Prosecutor?

Hat tip to Pat Walsh and her Middletown Musings blog for finding  "The Public Needs To Know" website , the idea behind this site is to let the public know about waste, abuse and stupid government actions that lead to the misuse of tax payer dollars.

I found the following post about Republican Candidate for Governor, Chris Christie rather revealing particularly when you read similar stories about Mr. Christie on conservative blogs such as Conservatives With Attitudes :

When is a Prosecutor Not a Prosecutor?

Answer: When a prosecutor chooses, selectively, not to prosecute an individual accused of a crime that 14 others are indicted for. It is not a
trick question.

One of the most prestigious positions on Wall Street is serving on the Board of the NY Stock Exchange. In 2003 it was even more prestigious given the boom market the economy was experiencing. Todd Christie, Chris Christie’s brother was nominated to serve on the NY Stock
Exchange Board. However, something happened.

Todd Christie was head of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg which he sold to Goldman Sachs (Jon Corzine’s old firm) in 2000 for $100,000,000.00. As the head of Goldman Sachs’ NYSE trading unit and had been asked to serve as the industry rep to the board. However, before he could be
confirmed to that position, he withdrew his nomination amid a number of issues that arose.

One of them included an accusation that he made 1,600 illegal trades resulting in clients getting ripped off to the tune of $1.4 million. Not only did he withdraw his nomination but he totally quit his job at Goldman Sachs in March of 2003.

Keep in mind that Todd Christie, who lived and lives in New Jersey, is the younger brother of Chris Christie, the US Attorney for New Jersey who is noted for fighting crime and corruption.

Since early in 2001, when Chris Christie was lobbying to become the US Attorney for NJ, Todd Christie and his wife had donated more than $400,000 to various GOP coffers. He not only opened his own checkbook, but teamed up with his brother’s current campaign spokesman, Bill
Palatucci, and current campaign fundraiser, Jon Hanson, to raise money for the George W. Bush campaign. Together, the three were approaching Bush’s “Super Ranger” status by closing in on the $300,000 contribution mark.

In 2005, Todd Christie was among 20 former Wall Street specialists accused of fraudulent trading practices. Fifteen of the 20 specialists also were indicted on criminal charges by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for the same practices. On the criminal charges, each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $5,000,000.00

“These defendants broke the rules repeatedly, they cheated the markets and the cheated the investors who relied upon them, “said David N.Kelly, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“The conduct here was quite egregious,” said David Rosenthal, an associate regional director for the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Christie was one of the worst.” Christie was a specialist in IBM, AOL and AIG stocks. Yes, that AIG!!

According to the SEC, Todd Christie committed more that 1,600 improper trades between January 1999 and March 2003, generating “riskless profits” of more than $1.59 million for Spear Leeds (his own company) and costing his clients more than $1.4 million. The SEC would later demand that Todd Christie pay $3,820,000.00 in penalties and restitution for allegedly ill gotten profits.

Christie ranked fourth in the SEC complaint among the 20 traders who earned the biggest profits at customers’ expense. The top three were indicted, as were 11 traders lower down. Somehow he avoided being indicted but still faced civil proceedings. Is this preferential treatment? Is it the appearance of impropriety or something else?

Question: Why did U. S. Attorney David Kelly not indict Chris Christie’s younger brother for the same things he indicted other people for?

Shortly after the civil proceedings started against Todd Christie another fraud case ensued under the jurisdiction of the US Attorney from New Jersey’s office. It involved 5 makers of hip and knee implants who avoided prosecution by agreeing to pay $311 million to settle allegations that they secretly paid off orthopedic surgeons to endorse and use their products.

According to prosecutors, by not disclosing they collected as much as $1 million a year in consulting fees, surgeons, cheated patients and broke Medicare laws. Four of the companies agreed to pay civil settlements with the Department of Health and Human Services, ranging from $169 million to $26.9 million. They signed deferred prosecution agreements pledging to change their practices and to accept a federal monitor asconditions for avoiding future fraud charges.

One of the firms was represented by Herbert Stern, a former federal judge who has served as a mentor to Chris Christie and a contributor to his campaign for Governor.

According to newspaper reports, the firm Stern represented avoided the penalties handed out by Christie to the other firms. Christie would later give Stern a multi-million dollar no-bid contract as a federal monitor in an unrelated case.

One other firm agreed to pay $169.5 million and was to be monitored by former US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Christie’s boss when he was US Attorney for New Jersey. Ashcroft’s firm was poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts reported for a federal monitor.

“But I also understand in the aftermath there was the perception of coercion and you have to deal with that perception,” said Chris Christie.

However, while most stories seemed to focus on Ashcroft, what most failed to ever zero in on is David Kelly. Kelly was the prosecutor who didn’t indict Chris Christie’s kid brother in April 2005. Just a few months later, Kelly left his position to practice law privately.

Todd Christie was the only one of the top 15 defendants that did not get indicted.

In 2007, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie “hand-picked” David Kelly for a no-bid monitoring contract worth as much as $8 million.

Question: Why did U. S. Attorney Chris Christie give a multi-million dollar no-bid contract to the man who let Christie’s brother off the hook?  Wasn’t he concerned about appearances?

For those who want sources and documentation click the following PDF link: Todd Christie’s SEC Timeline.  

It’s all there. All reference material is contained and you will be able to go to the original documents if you question any part of this story.

Gerry, The Want To Be Assemblyman, Sure Does Love To Write Letters

Gerry Scharfenberger, the Middletown GOP deputy-mayor, sure does love to write letters to the editor.

The "Want to be Assemblyman" has a penchant, a real knack so to speak, for the written word. 

It is a bit unfortunate though that most of what he writes about are gross exaggerations or half truths.  If you paid much attention to him or his letters, you'd think that all of Middletown's problems were caused by Democrats in Trenton and the only way to fix Middletown was to get rid of  Governor Jon Corzine and all those terrible, liberal,unfunded mandate happy democrats.

It doesn't seem to matter to him that most of todays problems started with Christie Whitman when his beloved Republicans controlled Trenton and it also doesn't matter that none of his letters offer solutions or tell us how he would fix a problem, they are just rants about how the democrats are the problem.

His latest letter was posted at the Atlantic Highlands Herald this past Friday, it's more of the same rhetoric  that we've come to expect out of him, blame,blame,blame and no solutions.

So I was quite happy to see that Pat Walsh decided to take on Gerry's letter on her Middletown Musings blog.  She did a good job so I have decided to copy and post it her blog entry here with Pat Walsh's comments in blue. :

There goes Gerry again, who hasn't met an adjective he doesn't like. He pounds his usual themes always concluding that the problem is OVER THERE... He never seems to get that he has a responsibility in this as a township committee member. Bloated government... what about two township lawyers in one year? 9But for Gerry the issue is personal, if Chris Christie succeeds then Gerry plans to move up to the legislature. Sorry Middletown, then we will have three legislators who have brought ZERO dollars back to our town.

Reversing Course on Bloated State Government

For the second year in a row, Governor Corzine has delivered a crushing blow to Middletown by proposing another enormous cut in municipal aid. (2%) It should be noted that the very term “municipal aid” is actually a misnomer. In reality, this is money sent to Trenton by Middletown residents in the form of income taxes, sales taxes, corporate taxes and any number of other fees and taxes. The tiny portion of the money that is returned to Middletown and other suburban towns helps pay for essential services and infrastructure maintenance. As a result of this punitive move by the governor, the pressure on local property taxes intensifies exponentially.

COMMENT: The crushing blow to taxpayer's is the addition of a second lawyer to the township budget, the purchase of a new township property adding to our already bloated debt service, The hiring of a lobbyist at 60K, bonding for the Shadow Lake project only to admit that it will never get off the ground becuase the plan was flawed. Gerry, like his favorite candidate CC seems to have forgotten about the 7.6 Billion dollar hole in the budget created by the recession. just a hint, essential services do not include hiring all your GOP cronies to the Sewerage Authority with free health benefits and pensions. The only reason the tax pressure has intensified exponetially is that the GOP committee members can stop spending money.


What is most frustrating is that the governor has chosen to preserve billion dollar, elective spending programs such as COAH, schools construction, universal pre-school, Abbott funding, FMLA and aid to distressed cities, among others. The latter saw a staggering $127 million sent to Union City, Jersey City, Camden, Newark, Paterson, Asbury Park and Bridgeton in 2008. With the current economic situation and suburban towns struggling to maintain basic services, it is patently unfair for the state to take even more of our tax dollars to fund these programs.

COMMENT: Hey Gerry, Let's just guess what happens if even one municipality goes under? The bonding rating for all would increase exponentially putting asll towns in even worse shape. It is patently unfair that you will take 6 months to produce a budget, which you have already spent 40% of before you even start making cuts, while democrats are struggling to find areas of the budget to save the taxpayers money'

To make matters worse, the governor has burdened Middletown with millions of dollars in unfunded mandates, which are state-ordered spending decrees with no state funding to meet the mandate. This places suburban towns in the precarious position of putting the health, safety and quality of life of every taxpayer in jeopardy through Draconian budget cuts to try and offset the loss of municipal aid that is, simply put, the residents’ own money to begin with.

COMMENT: The reason Middletown finds itself is a precarious state has something to do with the draconian spending that the GOP has hoisted upon us. Lats years increase alone was 7.1%and even with the new tax rate I bet Middletown will participate in the Pension Deferral program even though none of its legislators voted for it. That means that the decrease we might have seen in our taxes next year due to a decrease in the amount of Debt Service will disappear.

Clearly, New Jersey cannot continue down this road of skyrocketing taxation and wasteful spending on ill-advised government programs. Our only hope is for every taxpayer to make their voices heard this November and reverse the course of our current unsustainable, bloated state government.

COMMENT: Clearly Middletown cannot continue down the road od skyrocketing tax increases imposed on us by GOP governmentusing our precious tax dollars on wasteful spending like two township attorneys.( one of whom only recently came off the cushy Sewerage Authority.) The unsustainable and bloated local government has to change it ways or be replaced. Clearly Gerry needs to start taking responsibility for his own decisions that have left Middletown with hugh tax increases.