I feel bad for Mayor Fried, he still hasn’t grasped the form of government we have here in Montclair. But to flat out disrespect your elected peers is just wrong and embarrassing for him.
We are all here working for the people that elected us, we don’t work for him. A majority of council is demanding answers regarding finances, we owe it to our constiuents.
When we, the council as a whole, feel the budget is done, we will vote on it, not a minute or “dollar” sooner.
To read the story of this week’s town council meeting, which inspired Murnick’s post, click here.
I think Mister Mayor is an enormous boob. But he’s right about Murnick. If the First Ward Councilman is coming up with ideas now about the budget, then he’s just grandstanding. Where were his ideas four months ago?
I’ll add that Murnick was conveniently absent from last year’s budget vote, so he didn’t have to stake a stand then. I wonder if he will this year.
Murnick’s post contains nothing but condescension. It’s a wasted opportunity to explain his Big Idea for 2012 that’s holding everything up, but perhaps he has nothing to say about that.
I feel bad for my fellow residents of Montclair. Our entire local government is a joke. And a bad one at that.
I don’t know Rich Murnick at all, so I don’t know whether or not he was grandstanding or sincerely trying to make changes to help reduce the budget. However, I’ve been to numerous TC meetings and have heard MANY residents, council members, and groups like OBAC make thoughtful and reasonable suggestions for change — and the response from Marc Dashield and the Mayor always seems to be: “we’re working on that”. And yet I’ve not heard of any progress on these things they’re working on. Last year Cary Africk said he’d like to see us look into outsourcing for trash collection and/or other non-strategic services. OBAC made this recommendation too — and Dashield said “we’re working on it”. Ok, it’s now 9 months later. Have we started putting together an RFP? Have we even talked to other towns who have made this change? Exactly who is working on these things? If we don’t have the staff to do this, why not put together a task force to do some of the
legwork? I remember during the budget meetings a resident asked why we don’t use software to handle parks and rec registration, so we don’t need so many people in that department. Both Dashield and the Mayor jumped in to say “we’re working on it. We actually have had the software on hand for three years”. So —- is it installed? Are we using it? Can we reduce our headcount due to efficiency? Or are we still working on it?
So I hear Murnick and I don’t see grandstanding. I see a town government that simply does not work. Would it work if we had a different Mayor and Council and a highly motivated, proactive Township Manager with the right skills for the job? I don’t know. Id like to find out.
The sad short answer is that the vast majority of the electorate is too distracted and detached from what is going on in town government. The visitors to these pages represent a tiny minority, but most folks still harbor the delusion that responsible people are in charge, that there is no catastrophic downside to apathy. There simply must be a way to engage the broader community that is too busy working, commuting, and generally coping with the demands of daily life to get up the curve on these issues. From my own perspective, I spent years here just drifting with the tide. Now that tide has pushed us collectively on the rocks.
It appears that Mr. Murnick is interested in re-election and wants as much distance between himself and the … mayor … as possible. This council has displayed no leadership at all and the mayor may have set an indoor record for pettiness.
This is what we got for voting for “not them” at the last election. It would behoove us all to increase our level of interest and participation when it’s election time again.
Unlike jinx, I do know Rich Murnick–been acquainted with him since Feb 09 and have tried to work with him on three separate occasions. Unlike deadeye I do follow the TC proceedings closely (because the community org I’m involved with has come to the TC on a number of occasions since 2009) and do not believe that residents who write on these blogs know more than anyone else . Unfortunately the Patch and Baristanet have become little more than echo chambers for people disgruntled about Montclair taxes, a group merely pandered to by Messrs Murnick and Africk. Mr Murnick is the last person to lecture anyone about democratic process. He voted against resolution 183-09 which merely gave neighborhood groups the right to petition the Town Council for a view on local development projects. I know him to be a lazy public official; someone given to proffering disinformation when he doesn’t know an answer or doesn’t wish to tell the truth; incapable of being an honest broker between differing parties, because of his strange but deeply rooted biases on local issues; and utterly ineffectual when it comes to constituent service. If the answer to a problem isn’t blindingly simple, Rich Murnick loses interest quickly. And what has he actually accomplished for the Concerned Citizens element in our town? Nothing but a lot of pandering talk about disliking tax increases. The only budget R Murnick enthusiastically supported was Joe Hartnett’s last big tax increase. Jerry Fried is a sincerely committed public servant, as anyone who visits his office hours will find out. He has supported a gradual decrease in the size of Montclair government, and yes there are a lot of issues OBAC raises which simply cannot be implemented immediately, and some of which indeed the town is already working on. I applaud efforts to prod the TC toward making even tougher fiscal choices, but the notion that Jerry Fried is opposed to those initiatives is untrue and more indicative of folks who prefer to think of Fried in stereotypical terms as a environmentalist rather than a hard-working mayor with an incredibly busy schedule within this town and networking on its behalf on a statewide basis. Rich Murnick may be a good husband and a fine dad, giving him the benefit of the doubt,but he has no business being in public service–as those who have tried to work with him know full well.
jedposnick, thanks for your reasoned and thoughtful post. Our elected public officials, including Mayor Fried, do, indeed, work hard for us and for our town. The few angry curmudgeons who post here, and who apparently aren’t willing to run for public office themselves, merely come across as bitter whiners.
Let’s take time this Memorial Day to celebrate democracy, and to remember those who fought, and still fight, to keep us free.
“He has supported a gradual decrease in the size of Montclair government.”
Like any good captain he advocates a gradual increase in pumping after the iceberg. And an occasional radio message to The Carpathia.