For the 2010 Union County budget hearing Freeholder Chairman Daniel Sullivan brought two pieces of information that he shared.  Not any spending analyses or appropriations data as those were not among his priorities.  Here’s what really mattered to him, with video.

A glossy 4-page mailer was sent to Union County residents this month paid for with Homeland Security funds to ostensibly publicize the county’s First Alert system though it more prominently publicized Chairman Sullivan, who is up for re-election and has a contested primary on June 8.

Anticipating trouble Freeholder Sullivan brought an early incarnation of a blog post criticizing his campaigning with Homeland Security funds and, if the criticism were to come from his primary opponent who is connected to the Elizabeth Board of Education, a copy of a Bd. of Ed. magazine (Vision) that he contends was doing the same thing he is accused of doing and was fined for it.

As it turned out, he used both of his props.  Here’s how it played out.

BTW, the budget passed 9-0 but who would have expected anything different?

That’s the message Union County officials want you to get.  The only message.

The county budget with a massive tax increase will be approved today.  Health insurance premiums will rise from $34 million to $45 million.  $9 million will be appropriated for a new golf clubhouse.  A $124 million Bond Anticipation Note comes due on July 1 and will certainly be rolled over if buyers can be found.  Musicfest is still set to go regardless of how bad this Depression gets.

With all this going on and myriad questions to be answered what does Union County want to explain to the public: That Tina Renna is a bitch.

In today’s edition the Westfield Leader (page 8 of 25), the only paper that covers Union County politics, decries the 34% increase in health care costs and pleads for answers.  On that same page Sebastian D’Elia, County Communications Director, takes exception with an exchange that Tina Renna had with freeholder Chairman Daniel Sullivan at a recent public meeting and includes an edited video of the incident, with an added bonus feature, all designed to cast Tina Renna in a bad light.

There is one last thing you need to know.  Tina Renna has been asking questions and demanding answers of the county for years.  She runs a website tracking county matters that provides more useful information than the official county site.  She has had these run-ins before and always returned stronger.  If that’s a bitch then we should all be bitches.  Stand with her.

Residents received a 4 page color mailer today featuring Freeholder Dan Sullivan who is facing a tough primary election bid on June 8th. Small print says it’s paid for with a Federal homeland security grant. What an outrage.

I recently received some flack for referring to Dan Sullivan as a bastard during the taping of our dinner show after a freeholder meeting.

He is most certainly a BASTARD and an anti-American one at that.

I’ve OPRA’d the cost of these mailers in the past and this one, printing & postage costs about $55,000. I’m not sure, and I’ll be looking into it, but they may have also launched a commercial with the same theme, this is what they’ve done historically, although they didn’t do the mailing or commercial last year, they didn’t face much of a challenge at the polls.

NYC, my home town, which is under constant attack from terrorist plots, has lost millions in homeland security funding and this is how NJ is blowing through it. Yes it is an outrage that Union County machine democrat politicans hell bent on retaining their power are allowed to help the terrorists by wasting precious homeland security funds promoting themselves at election time.

Previously posted on tax funded campaigning.

a·buse: 3. improper practice: an illegal, improper, or harmful practice.

That is exactly what governments, at all levels, are doing to our children and last night I witnessed another example.

One of the duties government bodies have appropriated for themselves is the dispensation of accolades to photo-op-friendly groups for some purpose deemed worthy of recognition.  Last night at the Union County freeholder meeting it was plaques (and $50) to pre-teens for writing poems about trees.

Three first-place winners read their poems as the freeholder most into trees* emceed.  Pictures were taken with family members and runners-up and a good time was had by all.  Immediately after the presentation the board chairman** jokingly invited the poets and their entourages to stay if they cared to which everyone realized was an invitation to go.  They all left and the freeholders returned to regular business which this night including bonding $9 million to build a clubhouse at Galloping Hill Golf Course.

It bothered me what the kids were taking away from this evening - not the plaques (and $50) but another chunk of a monstrous debt their elders again foisted upon them - without the slightest idea of how badly they had been abused.

I said so and a freeholder*** took exception citing the benefits of such rituals.

These kids may in fact have enjoyed the pomp and may sleep better not having stayed to see what was done to them after they left.  They’ll find out soon enough.

To comment.

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* Deborah Scanlon.  Every report she comes up with is either about car seats or trees, the shadier the better.  When the presentations to the winners of the car-seat-poem competition are made she’ll likely do the honors.

** Daniel Sullivan who was later that evening to ambush Tina Renna about her party affiliation leading to roughly five minutes of quasi-shouting where I remember the word ‘hell’ being used quite a bit.

*** BJ Kowalski who is all about the photo-op.  Never mind that Union County is siphoning off money meant for the care of the mentally retarded - though, to be fair, she likely is unaware of it since you’d have to read the budget audit report ($593,660.56 for an item labeled “DDD Institutional Develop Disabled” noted with an arrow here) to find out.

It didn’t bother me at the time.  Freeholder Chairman Sullivan in his closing remarks at a regular meeting of the board last Thursday mentioned that he would not be attending our citizen’s budget review hearing tonight in Cranford though the other freeholders, the county manager, and finance director Lawrence Caroselli were free to.  I noticed a reaction.

In 2002 the city of Summit set up a task force to study county government.  Twenty people were involved, none from the county.  A report was released in 2004 critical of county government which included on page 40:

The county shows no interest in learning our point of view. During the course of our investigation, we repeatedly invited County Manager George Devanney to meet with us. Not only did he not meet with us, but he also did not have the courtesy to even respond.

In 2010 not much has changed beyond a 59% increase in county taxes.  The Westfield Leader, in editorializing their involvement in tonight’s presentation, noted:

A county spokesman has criticized our participation in this discussion, saying the Watchdog group is not a legitimate organization.

To the county the Union County Watchdog Association is not legitimate as the task force in Summit was not legitimate in 2004 and as you taxpayers have never been legitimate to them.  Apparently you’re all bastards or at least that’s how you’re being treated.

Will the county be represented in Cranford tonight?  Judging by the smirk I witnessed, no.  Will you be represented?  At long last, yes.

At its August 20, 2009 meeting, the Union County Freeholders read an apology to the public that it negotiated with the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to avoid a First Amendment law suit. The apology was clumsily read by Chairman Mirabella, who was the only freeholder to mention the incident that evening. It can be viewed on the Union County Watchdog Association’s Veotag account HERE.

The ACLU’s involvement came in response to the Freeholder Board’s informal “rule” that prohibits citizens from inquiring about nepotism during the public comment portion of the Board’s meetings. The Board has, in the past, prevented citizens from publicly asking questions concerning how many of the freeholders’ family members had county positions and whether those family members received preferential treatment during the hiring process.

The main culprit which led to the ACLU’s involvement was Freeholder Daniel Sullivan. Many people that couldn’t attend the meeting asked if he apologized. No, he did not. Instead he used his comments to harass a political enemy and thank his mother for coming out in support of him.

You have to see it to believe it? Thanks to Veotag, you can HERE. I couldn’t make this stuff up; it’s too ridiculous for belief.

I’ve been remiss at paying attention to the Rhythm & Blues By The Brook concert in recent years, which takes place in June and is held at Cedar Brook Park in Plainfield. This concert is the poor step child to the much bigger and widely promoted Musicfest.

I checked into the costs of the 2009 R&B concert and it was slightly less tedious then checking out the massive Musicfest costs. Last year I never could track all the Musicfest costs down. Judging from this year’s R&B concert it looks like Music Fest will be wrapped in mystery once again despite it having a bureau created and fully staffed just to oversee the county’s entertainment business. Freeholder Daniel Sullivan’s niece was promoted to be the Bureau Chief of Gov’t Relations & Community Outreach, Department of Parks & Community Renewal. You can only hope she has more talent for community outreach than uncle freeholder Dan.

The freeholders unabashedly promoted themselves as you can see from the Production Timeline, they were listed on the schedule to take to the stage for introductions between Grandmaster Flash and headliners Ashford & Simpson. They also had a private meet and greet set up with the headliners for photo ops.

I can only guess that the event cost around $107,224 for the concert and around $11,000 for the Kids Kingdom which runs simultaneously; and about $16,000 for misc. event insurance. There is no telling how much it cost in employee salaries, as there is no accounting to how many employees are assigned to work on these events. I didn’t bother to look into the overtime. I will look into sponsorships someday.

Invoice highlights:

Invoices submitted by the promoter weren’t backed up with receipts. For instance catering is listed, but we don’t know what the taxpayers treated the VIP’s to: Dressing Room/Backstage: $615.28; VIP and Crew: $3,240.00.

Two Toilets were delivered cost $642.00. $321 per sounds like the Celebrity brand featuring silk flowers, a sink and a mirror to check your lipstick.

The VIP tent was wrapped in mystery again. It looks like there were 315 VIP passes printed and a bill for $180.00 for FedEx credentials to Artists/VIPS.

Also missing is a slue of emails. I requested to see all email communications between the Government Relations and Community Outreach, Freeholders Office and between the promoter. It didn’t amount to much paper.

There were no catering bills but there was one email from an employee which gives us taxpayers a hint of what we paid for: Regarding the VIP tent food service: Thank you once again for giving me the opportunity to work this year’s event. As always I had a blast while doing it. The only concern I had with this year’s event was the food vendor. While it was a nice change they worked very hard, the food was not cooked completely….the slider hamburgers / cheese burgers were undercooked and I had to request that they be cooked a bit more several times. The mac and cheese was rather dry, there was only one round of the Portobello mushrooms and they were not offered again. While the lemonade and ice tea were somewhat of a hit, they continually ran out as well and they should at least have something to cover the diet lovers thirst. And numerous comments about no salt or pepper……

I doubt anyone would have thought to pass the salt and pepper to the little people sitting on the lawn outside the VIP tent. They just got the bill.

“Mrs. Renna wasted twenty-seven thousand tax dollars on this lawsuit.” Freeholder Daniel Sullivan, June 26, 2009 freeholder meeting in a statement read about the county setteling a lawsuit they lost pertaining to the official use of forms for OPRA requests.

Actually Danny it was $28,307.80 and quite frankly I’m tired of picking up the slack of informing the public and you freeholders who clearly have no clue as to what’s going on with our tax dollars.

From freeholder Sullivan’s personal attack against me (he read a letter to the editor submitted by some random citizen - it wasn’t this one) during last nights public meeting, it was clear he never even read the complaint, cross briefs or the facinating amicus brief filed by the New Jersey Press Association on behalf of our lawsuit.

Of course he wasn’t concerned about the subject of the lawsuit which has changed government for the better across NJ, he just wanted an excuse to harass someone that represents a watchdog association that has revealed his misuse of a county vehicle (he gave it up after the Star-Ledger picked up on the story), and pointed out how many relatives he and other officials have on the county payroll. And I still haven’t gotten around to blogging about how Sullivan played free golf with his three buddies at Oak Ridge Golf course every Sunday for years and years costing about $200 a pop, all while bullying his way to reserving and blocking out the 8:30 am walk on time which is supposed to be open to all golfers.

I responded to Sullivan’s attack during my five minutes allotted to the public to speak, and he continually interrupted me like a 10 year-old would do to annoy their big sister. I protected my First Amendment rights as best I could before being removed from the meeting by a county police officer. I had to speak over Sullivan and I did manage to mention the lawsuit cost less than a freeholder’s part-time salary (Sullivan’s is $29,500) and their catered meetings of chicken, ribs, cheese cake, 18 flavor coffee machine…… Out the door I was thrown while county employees made comments and snickered as I passed them. How concerned can they actually be about the cost of lawsuits?

The Government Records Council met with the New Jersey Press Association recently. The lawsuit Renna vs. Union County has led to an open discussion about many promised policy changes regarding forms as well as other issues involving the public’s right to access their government records and the state’s education of clerk’s.

In a perfect democratic society government would be of, by and for the people; and open government would be a given. History has proven that a fight for liberty is never left won; therefore citizens must be ever vigilant in holding their government accountable. Few citizens realize how laws are enacted and changed; and how much of the burden has historically fallen on individuals to challenge bad laws, which lead to the betterment of our society as a whole.

When Union County insisted that citizens use their official form to obtain public records, rather than just asking for them in writing as the Open Public Records Act states, the Union County Watchdog Association took up the burden to challenge what we considered to be a bad law affecting record seekers across the State. The New Jersey Press Association, whose members include over 150 newspapers, soon joined us in our lawsuit.

On May 21, 2009 the Appellate Division of the NJ Superior Court ruled that people requesting access to government records under the OPRA are not required to obtain, fill out or submit government agencies’ official request forms. To be valid, the request need only be in writing, including letters, faxes and e-mails.

Think of all the government agencies we have in New Jersey. If you wanted to obtain the same record from each of our 566 municipalities you would have to first obtain 566 forms, fill them all out, and then submit them 566 times. Instead of just sending one email requesting the record copied to all 566 municipalities.

You couldn’t even rely on a form obtained previously. In the time it took to overturn this law, Union County changed their official OPRA form three times. Each time they insisted that the requester resubmit their requests on their “new official form”.

Since our inception in 2001 the UCWA has obtained records through the OPRA from the county and posted them on our website for free and easy public access. For this we’ve been decried as a nuisance by the county’s extensive office of Public Information in many articles through the years. Besides the name of this department what is also ironic is that with all our digging for public information we haven’t been able to ascertain just how many county employees are on the payroll to dispense public information and we’ve recently suggested to the State’s Comptrollers Office that they institute guidelines so public payrolls could be more transparent.

Thousands of people visit www.UnionCountyWatchdog.org every month, proving that there is an interest and a need for these public records to flow freely and that they can easily be provided on the Internet.

If Union County posted these records on their site, the UCWA wouldn’t have to. How many other people wouldn’t have to place OPRA requests?

In a star-ledger article the county’s spokesperson stated, “The procedure worked well when used by thousands of people who received their requested public records.” Are the same records being requested over and over by multiple requestors? This spokesperson has contacted citizens who’ve placed OPRA’s and asked them why they wanted the information. It would take a lot less time and effort and would save tax dollars if the county simply posted public records on their website. But then many thousands more would find this information.

The county prefers for citizens to individually seek and obtain public records through a bureaucratic process, which they control and closely monitor. A process which employees dozens of people, many of which we are told are on the payroll to provide the public with information.

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Tina Renna is the President of the Union County Watchdog Association (www.unioncountywatchdog.org) she can be reached at tinarenna@unioncountywatchdog.org or 908-418-5586

It’s hard to think of Union County freeholders as public servants when they spend so much of their time, energy, and verbiage maligning the public.

We are in a depression. The economy is collapsing around us and government, on all levels, should be focused on containing taxes, providing only essential services, and leading us. Instead, at the last UC freeholder meeting no less than three freeholders used most of their comment time to defend themselves against what they viewed as personal attacks.

Freeholder Bette Jane Kowalski made an allusion to “people who love to talk to people involved with stalking a politician” at which point a brief exchange with the audience member Ms. Kowalski was alluding to broke out where the words ‘coward’ and ‘fool’ were hurled. Freeholder Chester Holmes took exception to the manner in which a blog lampooned his dress. Finally, freeholder Daniel Sullivan took exception to all the OPRA requests that Tina Renna has filed over the years and vowed to file an OPRA request of his own in regard to a trial at which Ms. Renna testified. In keeping with the theme of the evening, assistant county manager, Elizabeth Genevich took to the microphone to defend county manager George Devanney against a critical blog.

My house is not in danger of being foreclosed upon. My kids will have their college paid for. I have a job that I can’t be fired from. My retirement fund is as safe as a savings account can be. So to me, much of these contretemps I found amusing.

But what about the 12% of New Jerseyans who can’t pay their mortgages, or the 8.4% unemployed, or those who have seen their savings decimated in the markets? Would they find anything funny in government officials wasting time that’s precious to them as they dread those phone calls from collection agencies, or those past-due bills in the mail, or that knock on the door from the sheriff.

Are these freeholders serving them or their own egos?

Recently we posted a resolution that was passed by the City of Summit’s Common Council calling for some members of the Board of Chosen Freeholders to be elected to represent districts of the county. A similar resolution was passed by the Cranford Committee and the Kenilworth Council also passed the same type of resolution and there is reason to believe that other Union County municipalities will soon follow suit.

The Summit Resolution was scoffed at by the all Democrat Freeholder Board especially Freeholder Daniel Sullivan who claims that the board is diverse and is a reflection of the county’s population. Sullivan went on to say that the he wished that “the people on the Summit council would just get over it”. Oh my, this guy can only be referred to as a real charmer, I don’t know about you but with that kind of an attitude he certainly is not a reflection of me or anyone I know in central Union County.

One has to ponder what Sullivan would have to say about some legislation that lawmakers have been attempting to implement over the last 10 years. First introduced by State Senator Louis Bassano in 1998 when the 21 District was representative of Essex and Union county’s only, the legislation would create a commission to study the effectiveness of county government and appropriates $95,000 to do the job; it is probably not a surprise to anyone that this bill got bogged down in committee. Reintroduced by Dem. Senator Nia Gil and former representative .Richard Bagger Republican of Westfield in 2002 the bill was again referred to committee where it has gotten hung up again. The latest incarnation was just recently in 2006 when the bill was presented again by Assemblymen Eric Munoz and Jon Bramnick as well as State Senator Tom Kean all of the 21st District which encompasses a majority of Union County municipalities to include Cranford, Summit and Kenilworth among others. It should not be a surprise that this bill to study the effectiveness of county government again was referred to committee to die in obscurity, but perhaps it will be reserected during the next sessions.

Sullivan and the other Union County Democratic Broad Members are probably thrilled that this legislation repeatedly is stalled in committee and never voted on, as we all know for sure that if anyone looked into Union County government it would be found to be sorely lacking in actual effectiveness. It remains to be seen which other Union County governing bodies will be getting in line behind, Summit, Cranford and Kenilworth to express their displeasure over the current representation on the Freeholder Board and the continuing taxation without representation that they are experiencing on a regular basis.

The county spokesperson persists in pointing out that there are freeholders from Fanwood and Cranford so the central part of the county is according to their way of thinking represented in decisions made by the board. What he neglects to point out is that the Freeholder from Cranford, BJ Kowalski, was appointed to her seat in 2004 and has been soundly defeated at the polls in her home town by yours truly both times that she has been on the ballot for a Freeholder seat. And that the one hailing from Fanwood moved there after he won the seat and when reelected 2 years ago won by a hair and was joined by republicans as the other top two vote getters in Fanwood, that year and not his fellow democrats. So it could be said that both Cranford and Fanwood would prefer not to be represented by these local birds who do not really reflect the interests of those communities on the county government level.

When towns the likes of Westfield, Summit, Kenilworth, Scotch Plains, Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Clark, Mountainside, Cranford, Garwood, Springfield and Fanwood are increasingly finding themselves sending more money to the county than they keep for running their own municipalities or getting dangerously close to crossing that line there has to be something seriously wrong with this picture. That Freeholders Dan Sullivan and Al Mirabella, who also voiced his annoyance with the Summit Resolution, believe that we, here in central Union County should remain silent and “just get over it” while we helplessly watch the freeholders forking over our millions annually so that they can buy off the voters in the urban cities with new parks, free concerts and the like enabling them to win elections by bringing out the uninformed voters in those cities is insulting to the hardworking residents in all 21 municipalities.

There are those voters in the urban cities in Union County who have wised up recently and are speaking out as they too want to see their tax dollars spent wisely. Those voters are starting to make inroads at the local levels with grass root movements by getting off the line Democrats and independent candidates elected to governing bodies that have been traditionally in the hip pocket of the county Dem machine. How they will vote in upcoming countywide elections will remain to be seen but perhaps they will make it possible for the municipalities who actually foot the bill to participate in the decision making and once again make Union County government the effective body it was intended to be leaving Freeholders Sullivan and Mirabella having to “just get over it.”

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/BillView.asp

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/9899/Bills/S1000/939_I1.PDF