I write with reference to Michael Reina’s most recent letter to the editor and a responsive letter to the editor by Peter Mulligan.
It is interesting how Jackson Mayor Mark Seda per his commissioners on the Jackson Township Municipal Utilities Authority and through Mr. Mulligan’s letter to the editor are more than willing to “take credit” for no utility rate increase this past year when they have been in control of the authority for a very short while.
Apparently, the “prior administration” had nothing to do with the rate stabilization now realized.
Yet Mayor Seda treats his “unprecedented 32 percent municipal tax in-crease” like a hot potato that he cannot take responsibility for because he has only been in office for a short while. In that negative instance, Mayor Seda does not take “responsibility,” but fervently passes all the blame on the “prior administration.”
To simply present facts is not a personal attack upon Mayor Seda or his administration. Nothing of what Mr. Reina wrote in his letter to the editor was false.
Here are some more facts, Mr. Mulligan. I did some fact-finding and what I found was that Mr. Reina was never a member of the “prior administration.” Rather, Mr. Reina was a “volunteer” with various community/government organizations including the township Office of Emergency Management, and was such a volunteer for some 16 years.
Mr. Reina was appointed by a Repub-lican as well as by a Democratic controlled Township Committee. It is more than apparent that it did not matter who was in power, Mr. Reina simply served as a volunteer for the community.
It should start to concern us all of what has been brought to light, which is not just the largest tax increase in Jackson’s history, that is, a 32 percent increase. An attack upon Mr. Reina such as the one delivered by Mayor Seda (through Mr. Mulligan) simply because Mr. Reina wrote plain truths is political harassment, is it not?
When will the Seda “blame game” and “pass the buck dance” stop, or is such conduct simply a way to misdirect everyone away from reality – which is that Mayor Seda is responsible for the largest tax increase in Jackson history. So much for Seda’s Taxpayer United. Yikes!
I encourage Mr. Reina to keep writing despite the retaliatory bashing by Mayor Seda.
Jeffrey M. Nemeth
Jackson