Football fundamentals: shed some light
To the editor:
Further to the letter of Joseph J. Dutko Sr. ("Take long, hard look at the football report") published in the Feb. 20 edition of HVN, and notwithstanding the overarching egregious lack of due process throughout, I submit the following questions for informed and detailed reply:
(1) What exactly was the selection process utilized for constituting the Football Advisory Committee;
(2) What in fact is the number of "outside disinterested parties" serving the committee, represented as a percentage of the whole put another way, please list all members and any sports or sports-sponsorship-related affiliations;
And (3), what was the voting and approval process applied to the promulgation of the report presented to the school board on Feb. 10, 2003?
My fundamental question: do we have a credible, truly objective, expert body, entrusted by the public, to give us a clear picture?
J. David Waldman, Hopewell Borough
Not ‘perfectly acceptable’
To the editor:
A recent letter from Mary Lou Ferrara regarding Hopewell Township’s choice of a new township attorney possibly left the impression that the new attorney, Edwin Schmierer, was chosen because of political reasons. Mr. Schmierer is politically neutral and was chosen because his qualifications and experience were of the highest caliber.
The contention of Ms. Ferrara and Jon Edwards that Mayor Fran Bartlett preferred another attorney because he was of the same political party as the mayor is indeed the desperate sign of loss of control over all aspects of township government by Ms. Ferrara and Mr. Edwards. Having in the past been a very staunch supporter of these two committee members, I have witnessed with sadness and frustration their increasing inability to accept the ideas of others if those ideas conflicted with theirs. The choice to change attorneys was such a situation.
Ms. Ferrara has stated that the previous attorney (her choice) was perfectly acceptable and was not opposed by anyone. Not so. Others did voice concerns about the competence (not the politics) of the previous law firm and did raise questions last year.
That firm billed Hopewell Township $121,422 in 2000, $149,619 in 2001, and $99,097 in 2002, plus the $8,100 yearly fee for having someone in the firm attend all Township Committee meetings. The bill for 2002 dropped because, as a result of that firm’s losing a court case for the township, the township committee felt compelled to hire still another, additional law firm to handle litigation at the cost to the taxpayers of $189,000 in 2002. So the total legal bills in 2002 (in excess of the $8,100) including many telephone calls, came to $288,097 for two, not one, law firms for the Township Committee. I do not define that as being "perfectly acceptable."
Voters last year made it clear they valued independent minded candidates and selected two such people. The choice to change attorneys reflected a desire by the majority of the Township Committee to begin initiating some of the changes that they felt the voters had demanded.
Billie Moore , Hopewell Township
Not ‘big, expensive monster’
To the editor:
I have to laugh sometimes at the effort that Joseph Dutko and his HOV group go through to misrepresent the facts and figures of a simply thing like starting a football program.
In his letter last week he said the Football Advisory Committee Report "failed to give important details on actual future costs of a football program." Aside from his still not understanding the voting system in this state, the report wasn’t supposed to report the future costs of the program. The report was supposed to summarize the past year of the program, compare it with the other athletic programs and present baseline data for the future.
The report had a small section on "Actual Cost of Operating the Program" but it should be noted that the program did not go over budget even with the addition of some 10 extra players, added costs from the larger than anticipated crowds coming to watch the games and some extra costs in busing. The well-published HIKE five-year plan spells out quite clearly the future costs. The future costs for the 2003 football program, in its entirety, will still cost the taxpayers and myself zero dollars, ($0).
The "hidden" costs people are so fearful of, like the cost of a scoreboard, training supplies and field development, are really not hidden at all. Things like training supplies, uniforms and storage are all things included in the normal football budget, (that HIKE is paying for). Things like scoreboards and field development are things that get paid for from donations and the profit from gate sales and concessions.
Like Mr. Dutko, I am a taxpayer also and it hurts me just as much when I write that check every quarter to the township. This is why HIKE presented the plan to start up the football program for free. Hockey teams and swim teams, which are more expensive than football, are typically started in this fashion. The perception of football being this big expensive monster is simply not true. Yes, it costs more than the Model UN club, but football will have more participants than all of the fall sports put together!
To provide Mr. Dutko with up to date figures, the 2002-2003 budget allotted $694,446 for athletics. We will spend $49,189,696 on academics this year. Athletics made up for 1.4 percent of that. It is amazing that 1.4 percent of the costs allows for over 50 percent of the high school’s students to participate in extracurricular activities!
Next year, when the school district takes over 25percent of football’s cost, it will cost approximately $1.02 per household increase on taxes per year. When football is totally implemented, it will account for .15 percent of the total budget. May I suggest that "in the current downturn in the economy" that people concerned about the school district’s "nonessential" spending or a football program that currently cost them $0, that they look more closely at the bigger piece of the pie (98.6 percent) and not the 1.4 percent.
George Helmstetter, Hopewell Township

