Officials mislead in recent letters

To the editor

By:
   This letter has been prepared in direct rebuttal to the nasty and inaccurate claims made by two of our elected Hillsborough Township Committeemen – Anthony Ferrera and Steve Sireci.
   The common thread in the writings of Mssrs. Ferrera and Sireci is that the Direct Petition effort "tricked people into signing the petition," that we are merely disgruntled former Republicans out to deceive the public for our own ends, and that their own charter study ordinance should not have been voided because of "a trivial technicality" or "tiny technical omission."
   FACT — each and every petition included ALL of the pertinent information, the most important of which was the move to have "The People" elect their own mayor. There was no "small print" as Dr. Sireci has claimed.
   Not one person has claimed they were lied to or that the information we provided was inaccurate. Our effort was made public from the start with every facet of the proposed form of government detailed for everyone to see. There has been no trickery nor deception as Mr. Ferrera has claimed.
   Further, Mr. Ferrera says three of our fellow Petitioners are Democrat Party "operators." Either he is lying or he spoke without knowing the facts – three of us are Republicans, one is an Independent and one is a registered Democrat!
   FACT — George Ostergren and myself are former Township Committeemen but we are not "disgruntled" aside from being ashamed to be affiliated with the campaigns of deception, outright lies and political payback practiced by the Hillsborough Republican Party these past few years. As evidenced by people who read of our petition effort in the newspapers and went out to find us to sign the petition, we struck a very positive chord here in Hillsborough — people want to elect their own mayor — they want a more responsive form of government — they want to have the opportunity to vote on a new and improved Hillsborough!
   We did that while our elected Township Committee sat on their hands only to rush an ordinance intended to kill our petition when they heard we were getting a lot of signatures. They had no intention of placing a Charter Study Committee on the ballot, until we had spent a couple of months of hard work talking to the people, discussing the issue, and getting signatures.
   FACT — these elected officials rushed their ordinance and failed to abide by well known and very clear requirements for public notice of Township Committee meetings. Was the defect "trivial" and a "technicality?"
   I leave the final judgment to you. The state demands that public notices inform the public where they can get a free copy of the full ordinance, and that the notices use common language as opposed to the legalese and technical terms that could easily confuse the public and obfuscate the real intent of the ordinance. The public notice for that important meeting did not meet those two criteria.
   Is it only a trivial technicality as they suggest where the public can’t get a free copy of the ordinance and the newspaper listing uses legal jargon instead of plain English? Two courts have already ruled that they did not follow these rules – that they did not properly disclose the right information.
   I urge all residents to let their voices heard on this issue. As our elected officials waste over $100,000 in a worthless legal battle, we must remember that we can send the right message when voting in November.
   Then, we just might get the chance to vote for a better and more effective form of government for our town.

Glenn van Lier
Brookside Lane