Montclair's Make Your Own Slate-O-Matic

Cary Africk rocks. I have never been to a Board of Education or town council meeting without him there asking the right questions.

He helped my neighborhood get a crosswalk painted (to a playground) after pleading with my current ward rep, the at large candidates and the town manager to no avail. It took him one week to do it.

I am Jimmy229oz and I approve of Cary Africk and this message.

I think this is a great idea. Talking with some of my neighbors over the weekend, I was surprised at how many of them assume you have to vote for a particular slate--all members, take it or leave it. When I told them this wasn't the case, they were so relieved. Considering what a mess the past few years has been--its a wonder anyone would vote for one of the imcumbents. And the consensus I'm getting is that most people would rather order a la carte.

I would gladly see these old local politics on the Baristaville teardown map!

Great idea. I'm in.

(Wow. How innovative! Voting for individuals! This sounds almost like an idea that one can build a country on...)

Down with ESTABLISHMENT!!!

Up with HOPE!!!

Or CHANGE!!!

(Or WHATEVER!!!)

Change...Don't forget that change can always be for the worse. As a platform, change is usually a great indicator that a person/slate has nothing better or concrete to offer the voter. It's easy to hate the current system. Hating (wanting to change) the current system does not necessarily qualiy one to fix it.

anyone who knows the true voting records, accomplishments and work of the current council (with the exception of Mattox) would know that Michaelson (who is responsible for bringing millions of dollars into our schools for FREE by founding the MFEE), and Schlager are 2 people you would STILL want to govern. Read yesterday's town newsletter. Seriously look at the accomplishments. Shared services, staff efficiencies, outside funding, wind energy,etc that have been ongoing or in the works for years. As for Baskerville in 4th ward, there are 3 other much better options-Cummings, Lang and Taylor.

Respectfully, leinad, I TOTALLY disagree with you.

Me, too. I wouldn't want her in office based on her rudeness alone.

Out with old, in the the new!

It's funny how easy it seems to be to tell apart the average poster who simply supports a certain candidate from those who obviously have a horse in the race. It was the same in the posts about the Bloomfiled BOE elections.

If I had a horse in the race, I'd be betting money.

I would prefer an actual horse to many of these candidates.

Leinad,

I'm sure Michaelson and Schlager have done much for the town as part of the ESTABLISHMENT. We all thank them for their service.

Though, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with the Michaelson/Schlager relationship. Isn't Michaelson the boss (Chairwoman and founder) of Schlager (associate director) at the MFEE? I know I wouldn't be able to vote against my boss on the town council issues if I value my job. It seems like another of the many conflicts we've learned about over the years.

It just seems that the last few years have been too much to handle for the average citizen in Montclair. All the fighting. All the help for special interests. All the conflicts. The silly spending. The lack of progress on property taxes. It's just time for CHANGE.

To avoid splitting the vote and handing the election to Michaelson's slate (ESTABLISHMENT), we and our friends can vote for these seven:

Mayor-Jerry Fried (Unity)
At-Large-Starr Daniels (Thrive)
At-Large-Kathryn Weller (Unity)
First Ward- Roger Plawker (Thrive)
Second Ward-Cary Africk (Unity)
Third Ward-Nick Lewis (Unity)
Fourth Ward-Dr. Renee Baskerville (Independent)

The citizens of Montclair can take back the town.

Send a message and CHANGE things with a fresh start.

"Read yesterday's town newsletter. Seriously look at the accomplishments."

Leinad--are you referring to the four-sided newsletter with the messages from Joe Harnett and Ed Remsen listing all the "accomplishments" of the administration? I found that in the mail over the weekend and read it thinking it was a piece of campaign literature. Then I realized it was an official town quarterly newsletter. I found it pretty ridiculous that our tax dollars go toward propoganda like this. Do we really need to be updated on a quarterly basis about how awesome the mayor and his council members are doing in fulfilling their campaign promises? And do WE have to flip the bill for this? How stupid do they really think we are?

I do not see how anyone would like to vote for any person currently on the council or being affiliated with them. :-)

What we need is change and the enthusiasm and personal drive to fight the entrenched parties in the three major buckets affecting our taxes: BoE, Muni and County.

Persons like Michaelson and Co. whose only idea to managing a budget is to invent another bureaucratic entity are hardly qualifying in my eyes.

So from that angle I like the idea of cherry-picking the best people from across all slates.

The "Montclair NOW" newsletter received this weekend from the Township
IS in my opinion PURE political propaganda!

A cover story "Township Leads New Jersey in Shared Service
Arrangements?" Then page after page of the great accomplishments of
the incumbents?

Only ONE incumbent is running for Mayor. The other two running are running against the accomplishments of the incumbents.

The timing of the release of this newsletter is more than mere coincidence. It is a political piece and as such it is ridiculous for the residents to be footing the bill!

I think we are all owed an apology!

I am with you Montclair.Mommy.

This newsletter is not only free campaign literature for the current council running for another term (Mattox, Michaelson, Schlager, Tobin, Lang, Freier), it is timed to also help town manager Joe Hartnett.

I believe Joyce Michaelson helped with the hiring search for Joe Hartnett. He's her guy.

She'll probably be Hartnett's biggest supporter if she gets another term.

If a totally new council gets in, Hartnett will likely be forced by them to be more polite to the citizens of Montclair. He'll be forced to respect us or lose his job.

This might be one of the best reasons for a CHANGE.

What makes you think Joyce Michaelson had anything to do with the hiring of Joe Harnett? This is from her personal website:

http://j.michaelson.home.att.net/July2003.htm

I am heading up the effort to identify and hire a new Township Manager. We have contracted with Dan Mason of Jersey Professional Management to coordinate our search. The position has been advertised in professional publications, the Star Ledger, New York Times and the Montclair Times. We have reviewed resumes and have selected candidates who have received an extensive questionnaire. From these replies we will determine whom to interview.
The Personnel Subcommittee of the Council (myself, Albertus Jenkins and Ed Remsen) are working closely with Dan. We will select the finalists and the Mayor and Council will interview them and make the final decision. Clyde Sweatt, our Acting Town Manager, has applied for the position and will be given full and fair consideration.

Spoke with Sandra Lang yesterday as I was painting my porch. I complained about the taxes and the towns wasteful spending. Well she pretty much blamed it on the state cuts and the BOE. Well, I asked her about the many unused bus gazebos? She claimed they were paid for by NJ Transit. Is this true? I could have sworn that Ed told me something different years ago. I was also surprised by her education, Rutger's law degree, yet there was an obvious spelling error on her propaganda. Can anyone tell me the truth about our mostly unused bus gazebos (except maybe the one in Watchung Park)?

Hartnett is definately Joyce's guy as her testimonial on the internet attests!

Joyce was instrumental in Joe's hiring. Here's something she wrote:

http://www.jerseyprofessionalmgt.com/testimonials.html

I wonder if Jersey Professional Management made more than one placement in Montclair?

Here is her testimonial- on Montclair stationary no less:

Township of Montclair
205 Claremont Avenue
Montclair, New Jersey 07042

Dear Dan,

After our frequent communications this summer, the current peace reflects the success of the job you assisted us with. Joe has been meeting with the staff on Mondays and has scheduled meetings with each member of the Council. The entire community is impressed with his credentials and looks forward to his full-time employment.

I have explained the process to any who have enquired and can honestly report that the process was equitable and professional. We could not have done that without your experience and guidance and the support of Janet and Kathy. I have also explained confidentiality and mentioned that the names and the information cited in the paper were supplied by the specific candidates and not by the committee or the Council.

Feel free to use me as a reference. I will keep you in mind for further consulting.

Sincerely,

Joyce R. Michaelson
Councilor-At-Large

Well let see if we can keep track of all of this. Jersey Professional Management also helped Montclair by hiring our new CFO after the double dipping Dianna Marus left town. Jersey Professional Management also did a study for Montclair for $99,000 to determine if Montclair and Orange should consolidate our fire departments. That study concluded Jersey Professional Management cites a ?lack of common boundary lines between the principal communities? that would ?make it difficult for any major use of each other?s suppression resources.? Duh, a fifth grader could tell by a simply map that Montclair and Orange do not share a large enough boarder to make sharing fire equipment possible. Yet we spent $99,000 for JPM to tell us what we already knew. Damn, we are stupid, and we let Hartnett get away with this. Without a doubt, Dan Mason and Joe Hartnett are friends. For this alone, Hartnett should be fired, on the spot, or maybe for this......

Hartnett convinced the town council that he could not afford to live in Montclair,too expensive. So Montclair decided to give him a living allowing to help him get over the housing crunch. But at the time Hartnett's wife was the attorney for Union County College, making 6 figures, he owned a house in Rahway, he owned a house at the shore, with a boat slip, and A BOAT. He also owned 50% of two businesses. While he was conning the taxpayers of Montclair out of their hard earned money, Hartnett had assets of more than 1.7million dollars. So why did he need a living allowance? Hartnett should be fired, he lied, cheated taxpayers out of money, and received funds, (living allowance) under false pretensions. Who ever gets elected, had better be ready to get rid of the guy. And it won't cost us a dime. They can remove him for just cause. There are plenty of reasons.

I think a lot of you are being too tough on Harnett. Think of all things in town that have improved since he became town manager. Thanks to his efforts in the area of land conservation, eyesores such as the Upper Montclair Train Station, the St Vincent's Nursing Home and the Washington St YMCA have now been replaced with an abundance of wide open spaces. I'm also really starting to enjoy some of the new recreation department programs geared toward the over-30 crowd that have been implemented under his watch. So far, my personal favorite is being chased by gun-wielding teens when I get off the DeCamp bus after a long day at work. Running through the hills of Upper Montlcair in the darkness with my briefcase in hand--now that's a workout!

please do not forget that hartnett brought in his two cronies from st. peters college, ray ford and katye wowk for make work jobs that never previously existed, costing the montclair taxpayers about $200,000 per year. we can thank ray and katye for the newsletter and the great programming on channel 34.

Wow!

Almost the same thing was said by Richard Seltzer on another Bartistanet thread back in August of 2006. Check it out!

http://www.baristanet.com/2006/08/tonights_the_night_1.php

"Two of the people on the list of non-union employees are Katya Wowk and Ray Ford, the manager's old friends from Saint Peter's College. Prior to the manager being hired, one full time person handled the information technology for this small town. We were told we needed a “troika”. What “troika” appears to mean is that the manager could, in his sole discretion, hire two former colleagues from St. Peters College and the Council would provide the rubber stamp approval in the non-union salary ordinance. Full time personnel in the fields of information technology, public relations, etc. is now three times more expensive than before Joe Hartnett took over. It probably cost the taxpayer over $150,000 for these two crony appointments. I wonder if it is a coincidence that of all the qualified persons in this field, the most qualified were Joe's old friends at St. Peters.

I also wonder what their annual raise will be for 2006 that I cannot find in the manager's 2006 recommended budget. The reason I bring this to your attention is that the Joe, Katya and Ray created a newsletter called "Montclair Now" as a part of Hartnett's innovative communications strategy for the 21st century. Along with the two pictures of Joe and a picture of Ray in the newsletter, there is a statement in the "New and Noteworthy" column in the Fall, 2005 edition which says, "Saving over $400,000 in insurance costs, the Township of Montclair is now a member of the Garden State Joint Insurance Fund with fourteen other New Jersey municipalities."

Who's zooming who?

everything in the 2006 statement is a true fact. you intentionally omitted the continuation of the 2006 statement in which the disclosure of hartnett's claim in the 2006 newsletter of a savings in insurance premiums was revealed to be false. the newsletter was propaganda in 2006 and is propaganda now at the cost of approximately $40,000 per year in taxpayer funds.

I don't know much about what Ray Ford does, but Katya Wowk is an asset - she has finally given us a website that works and she responds to questions or gets the answers. The e-mail newsletter is also a good source of information. We are in the 21st century guys - we can't do business without good internet communications.

How would you know that everything that Seltzer said was true?

I gave the link so that people could read the entire statement.

What's the matter with you?

That's a good idea.

An e-mail newsletter might be what we need for our grassroots movement.

If Joe Hartnett and the council he's fighting to keep can have a newsletter that trumpets their accomplishments then those of us who want CHANGE should have a newsletter that includes all the nonsense they don't want you to remember.

I know I'll forget something. What do you think we should include?

E-mail it to:

pamphleteer76@gmail.com

I can't really afford to print it up and mail it out.

But I can e-mail it to anyone that's interested. It costs nothing and then we can easily pass it around to our friends and neighbors.

thomas

Now that the whole eco debate channel 34 controversy has passed, I'm wondering if Channel 34 is planning on airing the Montclair Times roundtable with the candidates. Wasn't this supposed to have happened this past week? I overheard some talk that there were "audio issues." Anyone reading know if there are plans to air the debate either on 34 or via youtube?

Never mind...found the answer (sort of) on the town website:

Montclair Times Editor Mark Porter's April 19th TV34 nterview with the three mayoral candidates, Jerry Fried, Ted Mattox and Joyce Michaelson, will be aired again once the issues with the audio have been rectified. The program will appear on Comcast channel 34 and Verizon FiOS TV channels 33 and 34. Because of technical difficulties experienced with the live broadcast, FiOS viewers are asked to check both local channels 33 and 34 for the broadcast.

The LWV-PTA candidates forum is tomorrow (Wednesday)
http://tinyurl.com/5l5nkm

...go for it Mr. Paine!

Thomas Paine 1737 - 1809

The History Guide
Steven Kreir c 2000

"The radical propagandist and voice of the common man, Thomas Paine, was born in Thetford in Norfolk on January 29, 1737. His father, Joseph, was a poor Quaker corset maker who tried to provide his son with an education at the local grammar school but eventually was forced to apprentice him to his trade. Paine was unable to accept this occupation. After a short time at sea, Paine returned to his trade in Kent, but then served as an exciseman in Lincolnshire, followed by a stint as a school teacher in London, before he again settled down in 1768 as an excise officer in Lewes in East Sussex. For the next six years he combined his duties as excise officer with managing a small shop. His first wife had died in 1760, within a year of their marriage. In 1771 he married again. Both marriages were childless and neither brought Paine much in the way of happiness. He was legally separated from his second wife in 1774, just as he was about to embark for the American colonies.

At Lewes, Paine was active in local affairs, serving on the town council and establishing a debating club at a local tavern. As a shopkeeper, however, he was a failure. In April 1774, Paine was discharged from his duties for having absented himself from his post without leave. He published the pamphlet The Case of the Officers of Excise (London, 1772), and had devoted too much time campaigning in London on behalf of the excise officers. In London he met Benjamin Franklin who helped him to emigrate to America in October 1774.

Paine settled in Philadelphia where he soon began a new career as a journalist. He contributed articles to the Pennsylvania Magazine on a wide range of topics. Thus on January 10, 1776, he published a short pamphlet, Common Sense, which immediately established his reputation as a revolutionary propagandist. Although he had only been in America less than a year, Paine committed himself to the cause of American independence. He attacked monarchical government and the alleged virtues of the British constitution, opposing any reconciliation with Great Britain. He also urged an immediate declaration of independence and the establishment of a republican constitution.

Paine was convinced that the American Revolution was a crusade for a superior political system and that America was ultimately unconquerable. He did as much as any writer could to encourage resistance and to inspire faith in the Continental Army. I essays published in the Pennsylvania Journal under the heading "Crisis," Paine attacked the faint-hearted, campaigned for a more efficient federal and state tax system to meet the costs of war, and encouraged the belief that Britain would eventually recognize American independence.

Often tactless, Paine provoked considerable controversy. He was invariable hard-pressed for money and had to depend upon the generosity of his American friends and the occasional reward from the French envoy in America. When the War came to an end, his financial position was so precarious that he had to campaign to obtain recompense from the government. Congress eventually rewarded him $3000. Pennsylvania granted him ?500 in cash, while New York proved more generous and gave him a confiscated Loyalist farm at New Rochelle.

After American independence had been won, Paine played no part in the establishment of the new republic. Instead, he busied himself trying to invent a smokeless candle and devising an iron bridge."