Letter: Challengers' Mailers Misleading

Letter as submitted by Pete Sabey:

There are so many half-truths and misleading statements in the newest round of political propaganda from the opposition to Joe Brown, Ken Taylor and Tom McCann for Fire Commissioners in District 2 I hardly know where to start.  Being a member and officer of District 2 I will try to keep my comments focused on the issues with our district.

Let’s start right at the top, the opposition candidates say they will stop political abuses, but there flyers are rife with political ranting, accusations and half truths.  They claim that the commissioners are sending out a “glossy puff piece, Obviously illegal," the piece that was sent out by members of the individual fire companies was not glossy, puffy, or paid for by the Board of Fire Commissioners as they would have you believe.  This one page flyer paid for by the members of the firehouses, stated nothing but facts on the qualifications of Ken Taylor, Joe Brown and Tom McCann, and the reasons the firefighters of District 2 feel you should support the budget and the budget questions listed on the ballot.  There were no accusations, no misleading statements about who paid for what and certainly no slanderous posturing.

Let’s talk a minute about the accusation that the commissioner’s office is in violation of the website transparency law and flaunts the public records laws.  Darlene required that the people requesting the documents pay the fees set forth by the State of NJ, she does not make up these fees, she did not try to “hide” public documents.  The opponents would have you believe that she was given a huge lump sum salary increase of $20,000 when in fact she was given a raise of approximately 4% for five years because she earned her accounting degree and was doing more work in her position and is now in fact saving the district far more money than her raise because she can now do some of the accounting work instead of hiring it out to a firm at $150 an hour or more. As far as the website transparency law, the law does not go into effect until next year in order to give the offices time to put all the information online. The amount of information to by collected and placed on line cannot possibly appear there overnight.

Next, let’s jump to the benefits of Commissioner Brown.   The opposition has accused Commissioner Brown of ‘stealing’ the benefits when In fact he is entitled to them, as commissioners have been for years.  Joe is one of the most honest, responsible and conscientious people I know.  In fact the Board of Commissioners voted to do away with Life Time benefits for commissioner.  Ask Mr. Haelig, who is behind the scenes pulling the strings and answers their ‘voters hotline’, what benefits he gets for him AND his family and from where? 

They also allude to a huge salary of $7200 dollars for 2 meetings a month.  If you consider it is an average of about 3 hours per meeting allowing for travel back and forth that works out to $100 per meeting.  The thing the opposition doesn’t want you to think about is the hours spent in between meetings, they would like you to believe that they only perform commissioner’s responsibilities at the meetings.  If you allow just 4 hours a week plus the meetings it comes out to about $15 an hour, doesn’t sound all that outrageous to me.

Everything the opposition has printed about District 2 is misleading and has been debunked by the members of the fire companies.  We pay the same taxes that everyone else does.  As a taxpayer and a firefighter that does the job for NOTHING, I think the Board is doing a pretty good job.  AGAIN I ask why would you vote no for a budget that is lower than last year.  If they are so irresponsible and corrupt why did the budget go down in District 2. 

Pete Sabey

Silverton