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.