August 16th, Subject: Undue Credit

Once again, members of the Middletown Republican party are looking to take credit for something that they had no part in.

I am speaking of a recent letter written by Cathy Rogers, an active member of the Middletown Republican party, who serves as the District 36 Republican Committeewoman in Port Monmouth and who's husband Charlie, holds prominent positions in Middletown as an appointed member of the Middletown Sewerage Authority and as the OEM Coordinator, for each position Mr. Rogers holds, he is compensated with both salary and pension benefits.

In her letter, Mrs. Rogers gives undue credit to her fellow Middletown Republicans - Mayor Brightbill and Deputy Mayor Scharfenberger for the recently announced plans to control flooding in Port Monmouth area.

The simple fact of the matter is that not Cathy Rogers, her husband, the Mayor or Deputy Mayor had anything to do with devising the current flood control plan that was approved by the township committee on August 3rd.

The homeowners on Monmouth, Wilson, and Brainard Aves as well as others and along with Democratic Committeeman Patrick Short, who championed the cause, deserve all of the credit for getting this accomplished. Mayor Brightbill and Deputy-mayor Scharfenberger never supported this effort until the time that Patrick Short introduced the solution to the township committee and the 80+ homeowners that reside in the affected flood area showed up in force to demand that action be taken to alleviate the flooding problem.

Republicans in Middletown have always been reactive to problems that concern residents of Middletown, instead of taking a proactive approach to any of their needs.

If Cathy Rogers were any kind of district representative, as she claims, she would have had her Republican colleagues take care of the flooding problem long ago. She says that this was in the making for 10 years.

Actually, it took 10 months worth of effort on the part of Patrick Short and others to identify the problem and come up with a workable solution, all it took was a little persuasion and a lot of homeowners to rise up and speak out for a return on the investment that they make each and every month by paying their property taxes to Middletown.

Mike Morris
Middletown, NJ