Middletown Committee fails to provide fiscal leadership

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate Publication

July 21, 2008

Middletown Committee fails to provide fiscal leadership

Middletown Township (Monmouth County, NJ): The Middletown Committee, led by a Republican Majority, is not getting the job done where it involves fiscal leadership, according to Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege.

“A 7.1 percent tax increase is not what our taxpayers need. We need to be watching every dollar just as our residents are. Years of non-stop bonding and unnecessary expenditures must and will come to an end when my running mate and I are elected to the Governing Body,” Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh said.

Grenafege said a perfect example of fiscal irresponsibility exhibited by the Committee Majority is the selling of the cell tower leases for $850,000. “For the one-time budget fix they’re doing, I ask where is the Committee going to get that sum next year? In fact, because of the sale the township will be losing $92,000 in lease fees that it ordinarily counts as revenue annually,” he said.

Walsh said, “For some reason the Committee Majority thinks it can keep coming back to the taxpayers with its hands open. They lack fiscal responsibility. It is clear that with our troubled economy, gas prices and housing problems the Governing Body has to put more controls, including caps, in place to govern its expenditures and spending habits.”

“It’s been 27 years of reaching into the taxpayers’ pockets and misusing what the Committee Majority must think is loose change found there. A perfect example is the Middletown Cultural Arts Center, an $8 million project that did not need to be done. This was a poorly executed project from beginning to end. From this project, the township gets $1 per year and yet the taxpayers have to pay the cost of running that building all year long. I am behind the vision and mission of the center, but other than that, the entire project was a failure where it involves planning. It could have been done another way, without the burden it has placed on the taxpayers,” Grenafege said.

“It is time for necessities and not luxuries. Whether it involves this country or this state or county, and especially this township, it is time to be frugal. Every level of government in our nation, including this township government, has spent too much money on things and ventures it does not need,” Walsh concluded.

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