Thursday, November 6, 2008

~ One Step Forward ... Two Steps Back? ~

Anyone not on the democrat ticket this year faced an even harder challenge as Obama mania took over. Congratulations to the three democrats who won the City council seats. Unfortunately, the voters sent back the same freeloading hacks for another three years. Our County taxes continue to climb at alarming rates and by re-electing those three, you sent a message that it's ok by you. I won't even get into everything else that is wrong on the County level. Hopefully, we'll be reading about some of it in the newspapers soon enough.

By some of the remarks on the commie site, it’s pretty revealing that some residents have an "us vs. them" party mentality, especially city employees. As an overburdened taxpayer, I view the necessary evil of politics as government vs. the taxpayers.

The Linden democrats haven't been too kind on the taxpayers' wallets, unless, of course, you have earned your City or County job through your democrat loyalty, many of whom are overpaid. There is no way anyone can justify glorified secretaries, or as they call them today, "clerks" earning over $90,000. The salaries of the Sheehy, Crane and Bunk families are prime examples of what has gone wrong when you allow one party total control. The County payroll is even more representative of the outlandish rewards foisted on political hacks.

In all my years of living in Linden, I can’t ever recall having received a campaign piece by a Ward Club. This year, the 10th Ward Democrat Club chose to use the employment of Bruce Howe’s wife as confidential aid to the Mayor as the basis of its objection to Mr. Howe’s candidacy. There has been much debate back and forth over the last year about what I think is really a non-issue. It’s the Mayor’s choice to select a person for this position that he feels he can trust with confidential matters and it just so happened to be the wife of his good friend. If it wasn’t Mrs. Howe, I’m certain it would have been another trusted friend or ally. IMO, the Mayor’s choice was not nepotism, but a reasonable choice.

Michele Yamakaitis won in a landslide. She apparently has a good relationship with her constituents. I understand she has stopped double-dipping insurance benefits. It’s long overdue that the Suliga tradition of part-time council members receiving taxpayer funded benefits comes to an end. Not only is it extremely difficult to find such handsome benefits being provided to full-time workers in non-governmental jobs, it’s unheard of for part-time positions. It's time to put an end to it.

Charlie Crane’s choice for Robert Sadowski to retain the seat Crane vacated was successful. I’m sure Mr. Sadowski will serve his Ward a lot better than his predecessor so in reality, Crane did his Ward a favor no matter what the outcome of the race.

Mr. Puschel put a sizeable amount of effort into securing his council seat. It took three campaigns to achieve it. I hope he serves the City with the same tenaciousness. The residents of the 10th Ward, as well as the 9th Ward, were pretty progressive by bucking the rest of the City’s long-standing practice of supporting democrat candidates. This year, the residents, after many years of independent representation, have selected a democrat. It’s been said Mr. Puschel is not a "Machine" democrat. Good luck to Mr. Puschel to remain an "independent" democrat. It's what most taxpayers want.

Taxpayers also want council to represent their interests, not the interests of any one party. While the independent candidates didn't win any seats, I hope it's not taken as a signal to engage in the previous free-for-all patronizing party that has, to some extent, gotten the City to the financial crisis it is now in. Besides, it's just plain wrong.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charlotte information any waiting thanks in pa

NFS said...

Will today be the BIG day? We're waiting here too for word.