Jackson Council Candidate Responds to Author of Critical Letter

By Ray Cattonar

Sheldon you have again make good on your threat to attack me or anyone else who decides to run against your Political regime.
I have also received a letter recently sent to my employer threatening my career and family should I continue my run for office. You can’t blame the Democrats for doing it considering they have decided to sponsor myself and Bonnie Barrington for our bid to unseat your political cohorts for office.
I will leave it to the readers of our Township to decide who they believe would be capable of committing such a despicable act.
The Candidates should also research your facts; you certainly have a flair for distorting them.

I have been a registered independent for 6 years and I did vote in a recent primary which automatically switched my affiliation to Republican, which I then switched back to Independent.
You must be really proud accusing my running mate Bonnie Barrington of being a novice in Government.
Sheldon, in case you haven’t noticed, most of your Republican Candidates who are running for office at the municipal level are also novices in Government.
Perhaps the Republican Candidates have something against a woman running for office. Bonnie’s experience working for the Township more than qualifies her for her candidacy.
You can’t still be angry at me for informing residents of my suspicion that your Republican club preselected their candidates a year prior to their actual nomination… could you?
You claim that your Candidates have done a good job, well moody’s rating agency didn’t think so (nor do we) when they downgraded our Townships debt only 12 months ago which increases the cost of future borrowing.
One of the main concerns in the Moody’s report was the Townships dwindling cash of $2.4 million and the 22 million the Township borrowed in short term debt due to the township’s lack of cash liquidity. Moody’s recommended to rebuild the cash reserves.
Thanks to our questions at the Westlake debate the other night current Republican Candidates and Ken Bressi admitted that his administration is applying another $1.9 million of our cash to balance the budget this year which leaves our cash balance at a dangerously low level of $500,000.
We could expect yet another Moody’s downgrade from this reckless act.
Our cash reserves have dropped from highs of $6.5 million several years ago under this administrations watch.
Mr. Bressi’s comments (to our questions at the Westlake debate)” that the surplus would begin rebuilding itself starting next year has us quite puzzled.
The only way we can see the surplus rebuild itself is to saddle the residents of Jackson with yet another substantial Tax increase.
To put the Township close to insolvency by artificially keeping the Tax rate at 1% after out of control spending is certainly not a way to run any Township, and to jeopardize the Township’s liquidity just to get re-elected is shameful at best.
The administration’s attempt at trying to mislead the residents of Jackson into thinking what a great job they are doing is nothing short of outrageous.
Do you really think the residents have already forgotten the 9% Municipal Tax increase just last year?
By the way the Township budget in 2005 was $32,455,615 and now in 2012 it is $38,729,299 that’s roughly a 17% increase. What decrease?
Does Township Bonds maturing qualify as the same as reducing debt?
You left out that the administration borrowed 22 million in short term debt the past 2 years due to the lack of cash liquidity. Not so in my book.
The Township’s recent failure to reach out to a fortune 500 company Coca Cola regarding a meeting we initiated seems to contradict your claim that your administration regime is interested in bringing commercial business to our Town.
The Republican Club’s choice of endorsing Candidate Rob Nixon as a Republican nominee is also most confusing I noticed Mr. Nixon has left out of his recited Bio his main profession is a lobbyist for some of the most powerful unions in our state, one in particular the PBA. He also mentioned he is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, but he fails to mention that he Teaches Lobbying.
You and your candidates seem interested to hide these facts from your republican constituents and the voters of Jackson. Perhaps he’s also too embarrassed to admit it???
How is Mr Nixon going to be effective if elected when he will have to recues himself from many issues involving the 6 unions within our Township and any issue involving the Police department?
Does a Union Lobbyist represent your new Conservative Republican Ideals????
Weren’t you a long term Democrat??
Dr Hofstein its time to sober up and realize this form of Government is not working we need to revert back to the form of government that worked the Committee form Vote Barrington & Cattonar on ballot J to at least help save this Township from further mismanagement.
Bonnie Barrington & Raymond Cattonar
Independent Candidates for Council

Posted by Ocean County News on Oct 10 2012. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.