Letters to the Herald

For the April 1 issue.

There is nothing wrong with arresting illegal aliens
To the editor:
   
I am responding to the Borough Council’s vote, with dismay, on the ICE proclamation. I called Hightstown home for many years and have many fond memories of the town, and this saddens me.
   My father, William F. Howard, who was on council back in the 80s, would roll over in his grave if he heard the political blustering over the use/misuse of the word "police."
   The mistrust of the police by the Latino community is a joke. If you are illegal you already have broken the law, and of course there will be mistrust. I truly wonder how many Latinos, or other cultures in the town, are actually legal.
   It’s amazing, people want security since Sept. 11 and there is a huge illegal immigration problem in this country and in Hightstown itself. Having been back to Hightstown as recently as December, I see many changes — some good, some not so good.
   I would love to see ICE surround the town and check suspected illegal locations and get rid of the illegal population, whether it be Latino or any other culture. Being an illegal alien is a violation of federal law.
   Finally, ICE is an arm of the Federal Government, and as far as I am concerned, they are police because they are enforcing the law.
   And to you people on the Council, why don’t you pass a proclamation to let the illegal aliens vote too.
   One last thing, before I finish, for the name callers out there, I am Hispanic.

Stephen B. Howard
Cypress, Texas



Board needs to spend less on teacher salaries, benefits
To the editor:
   
The East Windsor Regional School District recently sent out a pamphlet with a pie chart showing how its revenues are spent. Seventy-three percent goes to salaries and benefits. The administration and school board imply that this number is somehow out of their control. The problem they say is not the size of the budget, but the lack of revenue.
   Test scores remain flat. The problem they say is not the teachers, the administration or the programs. It is the diversity of the student population. It is the federal testing mandates that are unrealistic. Even when the district establishes internal goals and they are not achieved, the problem is that the goals were overly optimistic.
   Mr. Bolandi, school superintendent, said that another problem is that there are too many school districts and he went on to illustrate this point by stating that administratively, he has a staff capable of administering 3,000 to 4,000 new students (Windsor-Hights Herald, March 25).
   Why should taxpayers be expected to continually pay more for the same result? The school board, faculty and administration seem to think that spending more money equates to a better educated student population. Test scores simply do not support that proposition. When 73 percent of the budget goes to support the administration and the faculty, it is hard to make an argument that it is about the children. When EWRSD has a bureaucracy capable of supporting 4,000 new students, it is overstaffed.
   It is time to vote no on the budget and to continue to vote no until test scores indicate continuous student improvement. Until then, I suggest that administration and the school board balance the budget by cutting expenses. That means aggressively reducing the 73 percent of the budget committed to salaries and benefits.


Paul C. Szewczyk

Hightstown



Mayor should be involved in school budgeting process

To the editor:
   
As a longtime East Windsor resident and grandparent of two future students, I am concerned about the latest proposed school budget increase of almost 5 percent and overall 9 percent increase in our property taxes along with the continued downturn of the district’s national test scores.
   Last evening, my wife and I attended the school board presentation of the proposed school budget. The meeting lasted more than three hours and was attended by approximately 80 concerned residents.
   The superintendent, who seemed very well qualified, and other board members explained why the proposed budget will be increased by 4.84 percent and that our overall property tax would be increased about $260 per $100,000 of assessed value. The superintendent noted that the school budget increase was due to many factors which were out of his control.
   I am listing, for fellow residents to review, some of the critical issues that must be reviewed by our elected officials so we and many others can afford to remain township residents.
   Non-essential salaries/employee benefits in particular must be capped during the upcoming negotiations in September. A new attorney, preferably a top negotiator and an East Windsor resident, must be given a mandate to keep increases to a minimum over the coming decade. Salaries are currently 73 percent of the total budget. Let’s focus on reducing the future costs of three bargaining units (para-professional, maintenance and administrative support). Future salary increases for teachers should be more liberal and based on student performance, test scores and other pertinent intangibles. Staffing levels of non-teaching positions must be capped.
   The school board must look at creative and successful teaching approaches undertaken by other school districts elsewhere in the country, for example, utilizing the educational division of our neighbor McGraw-Hill on a pro-bono basis. Also, a new approach and/or more emphasis on receiving grant money and increasing other funds for education is needed — we could seek outside grants to help in new bilingual approaches to teaching.
   Cost reduction programs must be considered the top priority for the mayor and our administration. The township mayor, who surprisingly wasn’t in attendance, must pledge that no new programs be proposed and/or bond issues floated. On the other hand, a more aggressive game-plan to substantially increase municipal revenues must be executed.
   East Windsor properties must be re-evaluated to reflect true property values. We need a pledge from our mayor to maintain our property taxes at current levels over the next 10 years and keep them more in line with our South Jersey neighbors.
   Current residents, both young adults with children and senior citizens, want to remain in East Windsor but will be forced to leave and find other communities that are more considerate of spending resident tax dollars. We need our mayor to present new and creative approaches that maintain our services, and in particular the quality of our school system, and to cap our property taxes simultaneously.
   Make sure you vote no on April 19th. Make your vote count and let your voice be heard.

John Guarniere
East Windsor



Defeating school budget will not bring tax relief

To the editor:
   
I am on the e-mail list of the East Windsor homeowners who are opposing the budget. Here is part of the reply I sent to their recent message that urged budget defeat:
   As the majority of you probably have never experienced the aftermath of a defeated budget, allow me to present a few facts:
   First, did you know that a budget, once defeated, is next reviewed by the East Windsor and Hightstown governing bodies, sitting in joint session? The likelihood that they will cut much, if anything at all, is slim to none.
   Second, did you know that even if the review process yields some token cuts, the Commissioner of Education has the final authority to implement the cuts, if any? The state is free to ignore the cuts and simply reinstate the original budget. The "cuts" are only a recommendation.
   Third, do you know how much cutting it would take to achieve even a few pennies off the tax rate? Do you really think that would be politically possible?
   As I said in my remarks at the budget hearing, people who think that they can get tax relief by shaving a line item here, a line item there, are just deluding themselves. Worse, they are just playing into the hands of the professional politicians who do not want any change in the way that New Jersey finances public education.
   As board attorney David Coates so eloquently reviewed for your edification that same evening, school districts like ours are at the mercy of the system. Tax-rich districts can tax and spend with impunity. The courts then require that the "Abbott" districts be funded at the same level as the wealthy districts. Since the Abbott districts have no tax base, the state funds their schools with our tax money, and districts like ours end up with less and less state money every year.
   That, friends, is the nub of the problem, and defeating the school budget will not get you anywhere. So what is the answer? Some of us think that the state constitution needs to be changed so that New Jersey no longer relies on the regressive property tax for educational funding to the extent that it now does. If we can persuade the Legislature, there will be a public referendum on next November’s ballot authorizing a constitutional convention.
   Our State Senator, Ellen Karcher, Assemblymen Michael Panter and Robert Morgan, and the governing bodies of East Windsor Township and Hightstown Borough have endorsed this idea. It is not the best idea available; it would be far better if the Legislature were to tackle the problem directly. But that is not going to happen, so we citizens have to do the next best thing, and take the process into our own hands.
   I urge you to educate yourselves on these matters, and use your organizational ability to bring about permanent change in the way that your children’s schools are financed.

Torry Watkins

Hightstown



Cable fees still need explanation in Twin Rivers

To the editor:
   
I recently read a letter that mentioned you did not have all the facts and Twin Rivers residents were not paying double for basic cable. That writer is either wrong, confused, or a friend of Scott Pohl’s (the president of the Twin Rivers board of directors) and that’s just spin.
   It seems to me that if the residents are paying $3.07 in their trust fees that is supposed to be for basic cable due to the contract signed by the board, and are also paying $16.40 directly to Comcast, someone made an error in their addition or has money to burn. If the latter is true by all means send me your extra cash.
   Evan Greenberg (board vice president at the time the deal was signed), in a past letter, said he was the one that brokered the contract that has us paying $3.07 nine months after the contracted service ended. So a board officer at the time agreed to allow residents to pay twice for the same thing?
   Scott Pohl agreed to let us, the residents, continue to pay $3.07 and eventually $16.40 on top of that. This is irresponsible as a leader, inconsiderate as a person and downright foolish as a negotiator. Without a totally open system of checks and balances, the motives of each board member are questionable.

Scott N. Matlofsky

East Windsor



Residents not in Twin Rivers seem to be getting along fine

To the editor:
   
I am discouraged on a weekly basis to read bickering letters back and forth in the Windsor-Hights Herald between Twin Rivers’ residents. You moved into a planned community knowing full well you were going to be regulated. You have to live with the decisions of your elected board members. Deal with it, or change it, but don’t subject the rest of us to endless circular arguments.
   People in the rest of East Windsor Township who don’t live in homeowners associations must wish as much as I do that Twin Rivers’ residents begin to keep their personal animosities to their own community paper.
   I live in a neighborhood with an all-volunteer civic association, and our members work hard to keep our community informed and involved. If I have any problems with my neighbors (which I don’t), I can solve them without having to write a letter to the newspaper. Dogs bark, there are occasional loud parties, kids will be kids, and so on, but I would never air out any differences in public — they can talk to me, and I can talk to them.
   Similarly, if I have contributions to or problems with governmental services, I know who to call. Things can be changed by volunteering at the municipal level, or voting out the people who are unsatisfactory. It is unfortunate that you do not seem to have the same benefits.
   I would like to read comments from other homeowners living west of Route 130. Judging from their "deafening silence," I’d say we manage to get along pretty well.

Kristine Floren

Millstone

The writer is a member of the Millstone Civic Association.