Unity Day
a big hit
To the editor:
The Charlene Austin Community Unity Day was a success thanks to the help and cooperation of the mayor, Township Council, administration, Police Department, Recreation Department, Public Works Department and Health Department.
Thank you the Rev. Ozzie Gonzalez and the Rev. John Maltby for starting off the festivities with meaningful invocations.
A special thanks go to Mark and Ginny Kraft and the fantastic Viking Band. Their excellent performance in the opening ceremonies left all with a sense of pride in our high school band.
I have saved the most important for last. Art Roedel, chairman of Community Unity Day, along with his wife, Debbie, and staff put in many hours before, during and after to produce a special day for all in our community. Art and Debbie, once again you did a fantastic job and South Brunswick is proud of you and your accomplishment.
This was a day of coming together of many diverse groups and organizations in a drug- and smoke-free environment. It was wonderful to see neighbors greeting on another and learning about all the things our com- munity has to offer. I look forward to seeing everyone next year.
Joe Grodman
South Brunswick
Mr. Grodman is the Chairman of the South Brunswick Municipal Alliance.
Pre-election
business
To the editor:
The South Brunswick Township Council is once again off on a pre-election spree. This time it’s a proposal by an extremely small portion of our population to have the township’s taxpayers build a skateboard park. Such a facility carries with it a lot of baggage, such as, very high insurance costs, added security and supervision, high risk of injury, and needless to say, in times of high taxes, a greater tax burden.
We already have a dog park, together with more than a dozen other under-utilized people parks. Most of these have been built at the cost of millions of tax dollars. Do we need more? I would humbly suggest we do.
I would suggest we build a duplicate of the famous Hyde Park Corner in London, England.
This renowned facility is available to anyone who wants to mouth-off his or her inner feelings 24/7 to anyone else who wants to listen. Let the debates begin, right here in South Brunswick. Think of it. Wannabe politicos, ordinary citizens, sitting politicians as well as ex-politicians like me will have more opportunities. We would no longer just have one babbling mayor to listen to.
Frank J. Chrinko
South Brunswick
Some facts about
the Middle East
To the editor:
In the aftermath of the recent exchange of articles and letters regarding the war in Lebanon, and Israel in general, I would like to mention some facts that have been overlooked:
No. 1. In the early part of the 20th century, the Turkish government, which then ruled Palestine as part of the Ottoman Empire, conducted a census of the area. The census showed that approximately 330,000 Jews and 315,000 Arabs lived there. That would negate the claim that it was a strictly Arab land.
No. 2. In the late 1940s, approximately 600,000 Jews had to flee Arab countries. Israel absorbed them, unlike Arab countries which refused to absorb the same number of Arabs who left Israel, leaving them instead to languish in refugee camps. No one talks about reparations for the Jews who had to leave Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq.
No. 3. Much of the land in Israel today was bought, not seized, from Arab landowners, who were willing to sell the swampy areas in the north and the desert in the south.
No. 4. The number of Arab refugees, originally about 600,000, is now in the millions because they have large families, not because millions were forced to leave Israel.
It would be helpful for people to learn the history of the region before deciding on an equitable disposition of this ongoing regional conflict.
Sheila Hordon
Kendall Park
Board member
makes clarification
To the editor:
I am writing to clarify remarks I made at the Sept. 11, 2006, Board of Education meeting. I brought up two examples of items that New Jersey state legislative committees are reviewing to solve our property tax dilemma. My sole point was to alert the school board and members of the public that the legislature is looking at things that could have significant impacts on our students; we all need to be vigilant in studying the full implications of what is being discussed.
There are no formal proposals on the table yet, therefore I have no position on the nonproposals. The examples I identified were: (a) using Maryland as a model for consolidating administrative functions at the county level and (b) negotiating labor agreements on a statewide or county basis.
I pointed out that Maryland was not a cost-saving panacea, since their administrative costs are not very different from New Jersey’s when the same categories of expense were used in the definition for both states (as the U.S. Department of Education does). As a result, New Jersey adopting the Maryland model would not appear to solve the property tax dilemma. In addition, Maryland students do not perform as well as New Jersey students on standardized tests.
Further, I mentioned that when the legislators who were studying consolidation were asked, "If the highest salary guide in a county was adopted for the entire county, who would pay the cost difference for the communities with the lower salary guides?" Their response was we’ll have to think about that. Clearly, they had not thought that one through.
We all need to keep close tabs on what the legislature is going to propose to solve the property tax dilemma. It will affect us whether we have students in the school system or not. I will do my part to keep South Brunswick’s citizens informed regarding what’s going on using the time allotted during the board comments section of various Board of Education meetings.
Marty Abschutz
Dayton
Mr. Abschutz said the opinions expressed here are his own, and not the school board’s, of which he is a member.

