Bob Kress of Montgomery
Montgomery residents have a big problem and it starts with the letter “D” which stands for debt and also for Democrats. The two cannot be separated.
In the last six years, Montgomery Democrats have repeatedly chanted their self-serving mantra of fiscal responsibility as a means of getting re-elected. At best, they can be characterized as being stingy with the truth regarding their reckless management of the township’s finances and the future burden they were constructing for Montgomery taxpayers.
This year the Montgomery Democratic candidates, in a brash and patronizing statement emblazoned on their campaign handbill, claim that they should be re-elected, because they have “earned your trust”.
In the last six years, while they were “earning the trust” of Montgomery taxpayers, they were spending the township’s trust fund and mortgaging the taxpayer’s future at a rate unprecedented in Montgomery’s history.
Montgomery Democrats also claim that they were responsible for a reducing the “2006 municipal budget by $3.7 million” and “municipal taxes stable over six years”. Good spin but bad math. Have municipal taxes gone down for either of the reasons stated? Absolutely not.
Since 2001, a trio of Democrats on the Township Committee have been “earning your trust” by systematically depleting Montgomery’s reserve funds while playing revaluation roulette with tax bills to shroud their unbridled spending practices. Montgomery’s $7.6 million in surplus funds, available in 2001, are now at the dangerously low level of $200,000 and Montgomery’s municipal debt commitment has soared to the historic high of $90 million. When the reassessment process became flawed, resulting in public outcry and the “freezing” of assessments resulted, Montgomery’s municipal property tax increases were inevitable because the reserve funds were depleted. Unfortunately increased taxes will continue well into the future. While the trio of Democrats was “earning your trust” playing Three Card Monte with the municipal budget, the bonding binge and debt accumulation continued.
As a result of the latter, Montgomery residents will continue to be victimized by a series obtuse policies regarding the North Princeton Developmental Center,where costs are mounting at an alarming rate for items such as $5.5 million for the lake cleanup, “several millions more” for the sewer treatment plant environmental compliance, and $600,000 change orders for remediation work. Offsetting revenues from redevelopment are not a realistic possibility because required development densities to achieve such will overwhelm Blawenburg and the surrounding schools.
Residents — Democrats and Republicans alike — have voiced repeated warnings of concern regarding the consequences of the Democrat’s reckless management of the township’s finances. However, they have only been met by attempts to muffle their voices of criticism and dissent because some township committee persons don’t like the message, the presentation, or the messenger. I suspect that too is “earning trust”.
Montgomery must change course and do it now. On Election Day, Democrats, Republicans and independents must unite and let the voices of reason be heard by voting for Republicans Drift, Graham and Dye — the only choice in this year’s election who will restore integrity and common sense to Montgomery’s Government.
Bob Kress
Meadow Run Drive
Montgomery

