Is This Negative?
After submitting my article "When Funds are Misused" (see link #11) to the Westfield leader I received the following note from it's publisher, Horice Corbin, along with a rewrite.
Joe, per our policy we disallow direct negative attacks; seems like this will be a theme for your team this year; our editors revised it to tone it down and focus on the issue; please confirm this is okay; we won't go through this work each week, please consider such in the future - regards, horace
I enjoy my discussions with Horice but I don't agree with his opinion that I am being negative. I responded to his note with the following. When I address the issues of county government I am careful to include the facts that support my opinion as well as a proposal to improve the problems that I identify. Reading my articles and opinion from last year's campaign will illustrate this policy.
Dear Horace,
Thanks for the rewrite. It is fine. I do not want to come across as negative in my campaign. I do believe that there are wonderful programs that the county facilitates but the real issue is the waste of taxes and resources. It is difficult not to come off negative when the issue is waste in government. I believe that many problems are cause by excessive taxes and short changed services. If the County operated more efficiently and effectively I would not be running for office. The initiatives that I propose for the county government have to do with improving accountability, fiscal responsibility and ethics. I consider these positive changes to the way government is operating now. It's a shame that I will be tagged negative by advancing these reforms.
I have been involved with many programs over the last 15 years working with the county, as a vendor and employee. I have suggestions and proposals for improving some and implementing new ones. But the problem with the county is not the programs or events or the rank and file employees who facilitate them. The problem is with leadership. Poor administration nullifies the effectiveness of these programs.
For instance I have researched the problem with our parks being run over by geese and in particular the waste they leave behind. The park system is one of the county's greatest assets yet the geese waste renders the most popular and sought after areas unusable.
Last year, I requested, through the Open Public Records Act, documentation of the programs that the county implemented over the past ten years to address the geese problem. The response from county council was that there is no record. This came after the Freeholders repeatedly reported that they did everything possible to fix the problem. Not only did the administration neglect the problem but they lied about it also. Here I go being negative again.
The past two years I researched solutions to the problem and I'm preparing a proposal for a program to address the issue. This problem is not unique to our county. Other communities do successfully deal with the geese. Even private golf courses and corporations within out own county borders have successful programs in place. Why not the county? The problem is not the lack of resources. The Parks Department has hundreds of employees and a $10 million operating budget.
I can write a press release about the geese problem and even about my program to address it but it means nothing without proper leadership to implement it. Research and development of governmental programs should not be the responsibility of the public. We elect officials to to do such things and we pay $366 million in taxes for them to do it. For the last ten years the elected officials have failed in doing the public's bid, in spite of the public's attempts to participate. The only way to implement change is to get elected. And so I am running for Freeholder and one of my initiatives is to implement a comprehensive program that will deal with the overpopulation of geese and leave our parks clean so we can play and picnic on the grass once again.
Thank you,
Joe Renna