August 28, 2008

Spending in Middletown can be a lot wiser

Democrats Calling:
By JOE CALIENDO

    Middletown Township has been my home for 73 years. I have never lived anywhere else. I have seen this township change from being mostly farmland to being a suburb.
    For the first 21 years of my life I was a farmer here. I worked on area farms when it was a way of life.
    Things have changed a lot since I was a kid in the 30s, when I was growing up. But what has remained the same is that Middletown is a special place where neighbors believe in this community.
    Politics has overwhelmed Middletown for a long time, about 25 years by my count. That was when the Republican Party here was elected and turned a community into a trough for partisan political professionals. I have seen Middletown take a nosedive ever since.
    The Middletown Committee argues that it hasn't bonded for as much as it possibly could have. Even still, this township owes $80 million in bond debt. As a resident, I suppose I should be overjoyed by the fact that the town's credit card isn't as maxed out as it possibly could be.
    Just like where it involves a personal credit card, the question about a bill shouldn't only be about how much was spent, but also what money was spent on.
    I am saying that the Middletown Committee doesn't control spending in Middletown the way it should be doing. There are high-ticket items bought that shouldn't be bought (wide screen televisions for departments that do not need them, vehicles given to town employees that are very nice to the mayor, etc.). Middletown employees, like Attorney Bernie Reilly, have received salaries that are not reasonable, in my opinion, based on what they are doing for a living. There is also a whole "Office of the Mayor" that should not exist.
    My concerns about spending in this township are many, but the one that gets me the most is the burden the committee strapped on the township with the Cultural Arts Center. For $1 a year it receives, the township pays about $50,000 per year to the township employee that is in charge of the building. This is before other people working there. Bear in mind, the Cultural Arts Center cost this township $8.5 million, when the whole building was supposed to cost $5 million.
    The money to build the Cultural Arts Center was supposed to be half private donation and half bonding (for $5 million total). Well, that turned into an $8.5 million project that was all bonded, with no private contributions.
    I believe there should have been a cultural center, but not right next to the train tracks, and especially not for what has been spent on it' and is being spent on it. The right place for the Cultural Center should have been Croydon Hall, where there was more than enough room and no trains passing every half-hour or so.
    There is no one at the helm here in Middletown that is worth a darn where it involves the Committee Majority. Mayor Scharfenberger and Deputy Mayor Brightbill had a chance to change what happened with the Cultural Center while it was going on and they didn't. Mayor Scharfenberger himself was very much a part of the fiasco at the Cultural Center.
    It's time for these Republicans to start thinking about what they are spending money on and stop with all the politics. It isn't the community that started going down hill over the past quarter century, it's the government. The good thing is that the government is the easiest of things to change.

(Joe Caliendo is the chairman of the Middletown Township Democratic Party. He has been active in municipal government and politics since the 1961 campaign of former President John F. Kennedy)