Freeholder meeting 4/22/04
I spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting and addressed the flaws in the budget process. It is appearent to me that a combination of incompetence and corruption is causing an increase in taxes and a decrease in services. I brought up a few examples of how almost every projection made by the the County Manager, George Devanney was wrong. And yet the Freeholders approved the budget anyway.
Earlier in the day I requested the documentation that the Freeholders said they used in their decision to purchase the Union County Arts Center. For some reason this was some kind of major point to the Freeholder Board. The County Council called me a few hours after my request to say that "the documents didn't exist". I had already arranged to talk to the clerks office the following day for a response. The call from the council office was initiated by the county. I was accurate in my comments to the board that the response I received from the county was that the documents did not exist.
The public gets 5 minutes to speak and I was being reminded that my time was up. So I left the podium. In their regular cowardly fashion the freeholders chose to discredit my statements by calling me a liar instead of defending their actions with the facts. Pointing out corruption in county government may be a futile task but it must be done. At the very least I can say I did all I can to help the victims of this corruption.
Thank you,
Joe Renna