So it comes down to this. Anyone can get elected to office, no matter what their qualifications, or experience as long as they have enough money and enough experienced smarmy political copywriters to write their campaign material. But we knew this already. But it is a sad reality when that extends down to our little piece of the world.
I hope you had a chance to read the article in Tuesday’s (11/28) Bergen Record about the Democratic machine and their money in Bergen County and the quote from one of the newly elected Council people.
“Stephen Altobelli, who won in his bid for the Hasbrouck Heights Council this year, was a beneficiary. He said the Bergen County Democratic Organization helped lay out his campaign literature and mail six letters to all 7,105 registered voters in town. “It was my first campaign, so the help was great,” Altobelli said. “I knew what I wanted to say about local issues, but they helped bring a professional flair to it.”
Strong local committees also help county-level candidates through loopholes in campaign finance law.
Often county contractors have given to municipal committees, which in turn wheeled the money to county candidates, bypassing contribution limits.
In 2004, about $300,000 of the $3 million-plus campaign fund for freeholder and sheriff candidates came from 21 committees that raise money for municipal candidates.
Democrats have continually denied a relationship among contributors, municipal committees and county government. They also deny putting contributors in to key municipal jobs.”
Below is the whole article.
http://www.bergenrecord.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDI3ODM5
The “professional flair” he is talking about? The ability to twist issues such as the property taxes against the Republicans that cannot be resolved on the local level and a so-called ethics issue with the mayor that has been taken to court twice and still not resolved to Dem satisfaction. ”Local issues”? He didn’t have a clue nor enough Hasbrouck Heights savvy to come up with his own original ideas and suggestions so he had the County Dem machine come up with the issues for him. But then he doesn’t have to come up with anything new as he and Mr. Dinanno are placeholders for the County Dems anyway.
What did the Dems have? Lots and lots of Dem money that will have to be “paid back” very soon.
So, let me tell you what they will do after the 1st of the year when these new Dems take office. First, they will find a way to make sure to kill any projects that the former Council makeup agreed to move forward on. But based on what is going on in Council chambers now, they will get their way by delaying the Depken vote into the New Year.
Then they will pat themselves on the back and claim how much money they will be saving the taxpayers.
The only way that we will save property tax money is if the Abbott school funding program is reconfigured and the millions that is wasted in this program is then passed on the school districts such as HH to bring down the percentage of our tax dollars that go to the school budget.
But what they won’t discuss is how the “paybacks” to the contributors that are awarded the Abbott school contracts will not allow this to happen. They will use lobbying companies like Mr. Altobelli’s employer, MWW, to contact the state legislators and make sure that they vote the “right” way using their campaign donations as the carrot.
100% of the HH Dem campaign funds that elected the new HH council people were from lobbyists and companies tied into the Hudson/Bergen Dem machine which receives contributions from these Abbot schools contractors. Mr. Introna alone received almost $10,000 from these sources which he then transferred to the Altobelli/Dinanno account.
So do you honestly see the State Dem party sincerely working on a property tax program that will bite the hand that feeds it?
So don’t let the Dems here in HH kid you about how they will lower our property taxes. They can’t. They won’t.
