Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Can Manalapan Or Any Town Rent Mayor Halfacre?

So what if Mayor Mike Halfacre doesn’t live in Manalapan. Da People there should elect him anyway.

Recently, da mayor of da small town of Fair Haven did something only Joltin Joe Locricchio could do, and alleged Manalapan/and or Freehold resident Andy Boy could do when he was a Republican, and that is LOWER taxes! What makes Halfacre’s feat so astounding is he lowered taxes after Trenton cut more of a percentage of state aid than Manalapan’s percentage cut!

While Manalapan will see a nearly 14% hike in taxes, da taxes will decrease in Fairhaven!

Why?

Well, there are a lot of reasons.

*** Fairhaven isn’t spending seven-figures of tax dollars on land worth half that amount. Ah, but da argument by da Gang of Three is they were forced to by a judge to buy that land.

*** Fairhaven isn’t paying lawyers to try to remove da First Amendment from da Constitution. Fortunately, a judge saw through their argument of (actual court testimony) “We read the blog and said, boy, the author of that thing sure looks to be Stuart Moskovitz. Is it? I don’t know. But it sure looks to be. And he’s saying he’s not. So, my goodness, I’m going to issue a subpoena.”

*** Fairhaven isn’t still spending money – “well over $100,000” was da Andy Boy quote last year – that is, before he too became a DEFENDANT in da same case he voted to allow Manalapan residents to pay for – AND STILL PAY FOR – to clean up a $10,500 soil problem.

*** Fairhaven isn’t spending millions of dollars – plus maintainance - on expanding Manalapan Rec by adding a new synthetic turf field.

*** Fairhaven isn’t allowing 3,000 new homes to be built, adding hundreds of more children to da local school system and thousands of more cars onto already crowded Manalapan roads in one small part of town.

*** Fairhaven isn’t spending time & taxpayer dollars on studies to not have ratables such as da Village placed in a town with one of the lowest amount of ratables in da county and one of da bottom-of-da-list worst ratio of ratables in da state.

However, unlike Manalapan, here’s what Fairhaven was able to accomplish.

Borough council members approved the revised 2008 $8.4 million budget Monday, which had a $139,000 hole to fill after state aid was reduced. That fiscal hole was plugged through cuts and a few bills which came in lower than what officials budgeted six months ago.

Wow! Cuts! What a brilliant idea! Lets see what Fairhaven did.

Did they cut police jobs? Did they decide never to pick up trash again? Did they make all da residents stop eating dinners for a year?

First, “Officials also put off buying one replacement police vehicle for $30,000 and realized savings in other insurance ranging up to $10,000.”

"We went back and asked each department to squeeze a little more," Halfacre said.”

“A source for major savings was last year's decision to hire an in-house engineer and have that person head the public works department, which Halfacre estimated saved $25,000.”

“Part of the savings came from eliminating the public works department superintendent's salary and from money which won't be paid to former engineers, T&M Associates, for routine inspections, he said. Fees charged for that work will now stay in the borough and increase revenue.”

Officials also didn't replace a public works worker who retired, saving about $30,000 in salary, Halfacre said.


You have to hand it to Mayor Halfacre and his town council. They do more with much less, and apparently without any political agenda, and he got da job done.

DaTruth is, while da nation, da state, da county, and many towns are cutting whatever’s not nailed down during da recession and da poor fiscal structure of New Jersey as a whole, somehow Fairhaven found a way to decrease taxes by being smart and responsible. Manalapan, on da other hand, spends millions on expanding an already large Manalapan Rec, buys land they apparently have no clue as to what to do with (“bubble stadium,” “revenue stream,” “lease it out,” “build homes,” “expand Manalapan Rec”), continues to pay da large number of lawyers making up da “Manalapan Legal Dream Team” for a lawsuit against their nemesis, da Mosked Man, and blocks any chance of adding ratables to Manalapan in da form of da Village while border-town Monroe is planning a MegaMegaMegaMall a stone’s throw from Manalapan’s border on Route 33.

Oh, that millions of taxpayer dollars on land they have no actual plan for, did daTruthSquad mention that CONVICT JOHN LYNCH, who gave money to Manalapan Democrats and who’s business partner was behind da Monroe MegaMegaMegaMall has his tentacles in this land deal?

DaTruth is, what Mayor Halfacre and his Fairhaven representatives did was commendable for his residents and da right thing to do. There was no politics involved, just doing right things during hard economic times. He should be pround of what he has accomplished as da mayor of his town.

Too bad Manalapan can’t rent him out to run this town.

Kudos to Mayor Halfacre, and a message to Manalapan residents: Demand from your elected officials da same thing Fairhaven residents asked for - and received – from their elected officials – honesty – dependability – fiscal responsibility – and putting residents before political pals.

That, my TruthTellers, is daTruth.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's amazing what a town can accomplish when they have a mayor who can actually read and write and use a calculator and is focused on the town rather than sucking health benefits and other personal gain out of it while spending the taxpayers' money for her own political revenge.

Anonymous said...

So, you want the town to lay off employees, defer purchases of needed equipment, allow a MegaMall that doesn't confirm to town zoning or State DOT traffic requirements, and we shouldn't pursue malpractice against former employees accused of wrongdoing? Boy are you irrespoinsible.

Anonymous said...

Here's the real story about Larry Roth's spin above. Manalapan gained 10% in population because Shapiro and his puppets like Roth and Ward went nuts allowing all kinds of residential building in the township that should never have been permitted, while eliminating the requirement Hovnanian had to put in commercial where they are now building residential, and blocking other valuable commercial like the village center. The village center was called "mega mall" by John Lynch's puppets (mainly Jim Gray and the democrats) to cover up the fact that they were blocking it to benefit John Lynch's development in Monroe. The Village Center conforms to traffic requirements. That's how it got approved to begin with. The only issue is whether to allow the traffic onto Route 33. Roth and Lucas blocked that meaning that the Village Center will be built and will pour all its traffic onto Millhurst Road, blocking the intersection for all of the residents there. Just another imbecilic decision by the Roth/Shapiro/Lucas team. If you are going to pursue a malpractice action against former employees who ACTUALLY WERE involved in wrongdoing that's fine. To spend taxpayer's money to go after a former employee just because a bitter has been is pressuring you for revenge is not proper. It is also not proper to sue someone who followed a court order, while refusing to sue the homeowners responsible for the problem or the professionals who ACTUALLY WERE guilty of malpractice. THAT is irresponsible. But that has been the history of the Roth/Shapiro/Lucas team. Always accuse the innocent, cover up your own wrongdoing, and try to spin it so it looks like you know what you're doing, when you've screwed up just about everything you've touched. And by the way, if you're going to use words like "irresponsible" learn how to spell them. That's why you'll never be Bob Woodward.

Anonymous said...

To the yutz who wrote: "the population of Manalapan GREW by 10.2%. More houses increase municipal spending for police, fire, first aid, etc.. More children require more teachers, school buses, etc. as well as more athletic fields."

And don't they pay taxes, or is that under the table, too?

Anonymous said...

last year our mayor lived in Freehold. So why can't we have a mayor who lives in Fair Haven? I'll bet the mayor of Fair Haven never claimed to be living with mommy and "visiting" his wife.

mike halfacre said...

Thanks for the plug, Truth.

Someone tipped me off to your blog, pretty interesting stuff. Keeping your politicos on the straight and narrow?

We've been working hard in Fair Haven, and are proud of what we've been able to do.

Now we need to work on next year.

Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

This Mayor Halfacre sounds like a pretty straight guy who actually does the right thing for the people he was elected to serve.

Considering Manalapan's Roth / Lucas / Klauber axis of evil has spent about $7 million of taxpayer money lately for a synthetic field, land they don;t know what they want to do with, and a political vendetta sham lawsuit, maybe we can spend some of that money either renting or leasing Mayor Halfacre to run our town too?

Anonymous said...

Considering what the political machines in Manalapan have left us as choices:

Michelle Roth (enough said)
Don Holland (who?)
Ryan Green (already ran in 1 election this year)
Some guy named Garcia (another who?)

I'm going to write-in the name Datruthsquad. At this point, what do Manalapan residents have to lose?

Anonymous said...

Michelle Roth is the most hated person in Manalapan.

She cannot win in November.

Anonymous said...

My opinion said....

Mayor Halfacre should offer Mayor Roth a shared services agreement. The agreement is that Mayor Halfacre comes to Manalapan, tutors the Gang of 3 in fiscal budgeting and implements a plan for them to follow on operating a township utilizing the money they have. Showing them that borrowing money via bonds is still a loan and when you lack the revenue to regenerate your own current budgets surplus usage you should NEVER spend more money. Mayor Halfacre realizes he was elected to protect the taxpayers and not use their money unwwisely.

Anonymous said...

I did not know just how much Manalapan has borrowed lately until I read this blog.

I didn't believe this blog, but after checking it out for myself this blog was accurate - nearly $7 million dollars in just the last year! In a recession and with no plan to be spending that money is reckless at the very least.

Manalapan residents should demand an audit of how their money is spent. I always thought Marlboro's government wasn't that great, but now I'm proud to live here and not in Manalapan. You people have the worst corrupt politicians leading your government than Sharpe James and some of those in Newark.

IMHO

Anonymous said...

The entire country is in a recession and having to deal with hard economic times, except in Manalapan. Here in the land of Mayor Michelle Roth we SPEND SPEND SPEND! There is no recession here, there is no fiscal downsizing. We are Manalapan and Roth Rules as the Queen. Peasants be damned you will pay for your Queens desires- soccer fields for her "jewel" the Manalapan Rec Center. Too bad we can't make a damn cent off of it. But we are in debt up to our eyeballs. Ask our infamous administrator Tara Tiara how she feels we will handle our fiscal crisis next year. She knows our goose is cooked.

Anonymous said...

I say lets write in Mike Halfacre for TC this year since we don't have a good choice.