Courier Opinion - July 10, 2008

Just why the Middletown Committee is corrupt ... again

Democrats Calling
By JOE CALIENDO

    If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the chances are that it's a duck.
    In Middletown, the Republican majority on the Township Committee has hired the law firm of the Republican Party's chairman, Peter Carton, as its bond counsel Gibbons P.C. has had the Middletown bond work for a very long time, and consequently Mr. Carton has been the Middletown Republican chairman during that time, more than two decades.
    So, the guy who picks the candidates, and is ultimately responsible for the campaigns, is a township contractor. In my opinion this is absolutely corrupt, and that means that Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger, Deputy Mayor Pamela Brightbill and
Committeeman Tom Wilkens are absolutely compromised as lawmakers.
    They're not alone because there are generations of Middletown Republicans that did the same thing where it involves Mr. Carton's firm, and the GOP got away with it for a very long time.
    Not only was Mr. Carton's firm anointed with the bond work, in a community where it was sometimes joked the governing body would 'bond for lunch,' but Mr. Carton and a legal firm buddy received paid positions in the Middletown government.
    Peter Carton had served on the Middletown Sewer Commission, in a paid position, along with law firm colleague Brian Nelson, of Shrewsbury.
    I think it is it a conflict to select the candidates that sit on the governing body, and then get paid appointments for one's self and company in town. But it has been overlooked for a long time because the name of the Republican game in Middletown is not service to the community, but service to one's own self.
    Every year around election time Mr. Carton's Republicans put up signs that read "Fresh Faces, Local Leadership" to get elected, and then those "fresh faces" begin their respective tenures on the governing body voting for the same thing - Mr. Carton getting a free lunch on the taxpayers.
    The truth of the matter is that none of the elected officials who sat on the governing body in Middletown and ever cast a vote for their political boss's law firm getting the bond work in the community, in my opinion, deserved to sit in those chairs.
    I have no idea where the hubris of these people comes from, given the fact that all Mayor Scharfenberger, Deputy Mayor Brightbill and Committeeman Wilkens are doing is probably the lowest thing any politician could do, by being so supportive of their political boss, his law firm and his crony buddies where it involves public tax money. There is a lot of walking around and acting like this isn't a big deal - but it is and it's not going away.
    At the end of the day, elections have simply become pageants for the Middletown GOP; shows put on for the residents. But after voters have gone into the big top and seen the elephants and dancing bears, walked outside and been on the Ferris wheel and gone to the throwing games, there's still going to be the fact that the Middletown GOP has run a corrupted game in town for 27 years. No one that sat in Middletown as an elected official and voted for their party boss was a good lawmaker, and so that means that there is only one party in the community that isn't corrupted as heck by the politics - and it isn't the Middletown GOP.
    It's a shame that it is that way, but it is. For a voter, it is a hard thing to believe that you've been duped, hoodwinked and taken for a ride. But, in Middletown, if you've voted for a Republican during the past 27 years or so for Township Committee - you have.
    I think it's going to be an interesting campaign season this year, as Mr. Carton tries to sell his well-worn bag of goods again with Republican candidates Pam Brightbill and Anthony Fiore. I can't say I wish him a lot of luck with this, given the fact that what he is doing is some of the most brazen, corrupt things in government I have ever seen in my life.
    How Mayor Scharfenberger, Deputy Mayor Brightbill and Committeeman Wilkens can sit up at the dais and peddle this garbage is beyond me.

(Joe Caliendo is the chairman of the Middletown Township Democratic Party.)