Aberdeen, the Township of Money Pit

Since the good people of Aberdeen have supported their monolithic democratic town council for over a decade, I have to assume to following will be welcome news.

Although the town budget hasn’t been posted yet, the township has announced good news; municipal property taxes will be going upabout 5% this year. That’s more than triple the rate increase from the school district. Once again, the township has successfully increased its share of the property tax pie.

More good news. The township continues to invest in senior housing with another $360,000 for CME to do more “environmental remediation” at the old South River Metals site. Don’t know if we’ll ever actually have senior housing but it won’t be for lack of spending money on CME. Perhaps it would be cheaper for the town to reincorporate as a wholly owned subsidiary of CME.

Too bad Aberdeen’s bond rating dropped. (Hat tip: AberdeenNJlife). Moody says the downgrade resulted from Aberdeen’s “weakened financial position following fund balance draws in each of the last seven years.” Makes you wonder if they’ve been reading the blog. Well, no problem. We can just raise more taxes.

On a final note, it’s nice to see the township recognize our old public defender, John Fiorino Jr; the council just voted to by his daddy’s property for $130,000.

Aberdeen. Such a nice town. If only it didn’t cost so darn much.

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Madness Run Amok

I know, like, and respect many of the school board members but I will no longer try to understand them. A year ago, I wrote, “the scary thing is the school board will likely allow [Healy] to take the lead.” I was correct but I never imagined it would get this bad.

Recently, the school board voted to strip the citizens of their right to vote on the school budget. They claimed to do this because the citizens were too stupid, ignorant, or partisan to simply rubberstamp the school board’s rubberstamp of the administration’s proposed budgets.

What were those proposed budgets that they couldn’t risk putting before the good people of Matawan-Aberdeen? In two years, during a recession and housing crisis, they’ve raised spending by 6.4%. All that extra money coming from the state could’ve gone to tax relief but tax relief will never be on the agenda. Taxes will keep going up forever.
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Vinnie’s World – A Proclamation

“I fart in your general direction” – John Cleese, Monty Python

As a monument to Aberdeen’s surrender of all rights to good government, the Town Council hereby bequeaths to the township, Vincent Vinci Park, in honor of that most scurrilous of councilmen, Councilman Vincent Vinci. (Hat tip: aberdeennjlife.blogspot.com/)

Councilman Vinci’s contempt for the citizenry is unsurpassed in Aberdeen’s history and a shining example of our Town Council’s aspirations. 

Among Councilman Vinci’s abundant contemptible acts, we recognize the following:

• Taking consulting fees to work on his magnificent reelection campaigns
• Purchasing two large plots of unrestricted public land adjacent to his home for the grand total of $1 each
• Convincing the county to purchase and demolish a perfectly good home and build a bypass road to alleviate automobile traffic on his dead end street
• Repeatedly parking in the handicapped parking spot in front of Town Hall
• Being one of only two council members to take a pay raise at the height of the Great Recession
• Voting to increase his fire commissioner salary by 36.5% during the Great Recession
• Installing by his residence the only street signs in the township to state, “Do Not Block the Intersection”
• Owning a severely under-taxed home property
• Facilitating Aberdeen’s unsurpassed record in Pay-to-Play

Councilman Vinci, we salute you.

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Shut Up and Pay

What do you do when the citizenry keeps voting down tax increases? Take away their right to vote.

That’s exactly what the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School Board did this month when it voted to move school elections to November.

From now on, so long as school tax increases are kept under 2%, residents will no longer have the right to vote on the budget. Doesn’t take a genius to guess how much the school administration plans to raise taxes each year. No doubt the teachers union will be licking their chops. The district bloat can rest easy as well since the Sword of Damocles is no longer hanging over their heads to cut the fat.

According to School Board President Kenny, “When a very, very fiscally responsible and conservative budget is not passed in an election by a small group of people who may be entrenched or have other interests, we may not be able to serve the very students we are charged to serve.” I guess he’s already forgotten the Barza years.

Or maybe the board thinks a 2% annual increase is reasonable. For the average homeowner, that’ll be about a hundred-dollar increase each year on top of municipal, county, state, federal, plus a host of increases from government fees and regulations.

Over a ten-year period, that’s a $5,500 take from the average homeowner.

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The Year Ahead

This year, the big news will be the upcoming presidential election. In local news, we’re not expecting much change and that would be sad because Aberdeen could be so much more. Here is a list of indicators to see if there will be any positive developments in town.

Town Budget
I have high expectations for Holly Reycraft. She has a well-deserved reputation for competence, integrity, and dedication. As interim town manager, she made improvements to the budget, implemented the new employee health plan, and brought order to the township operations. However, she’s still working for a town council that is deeply immersed in pay-to-play.

As soon as the new councilmembers were seated, their first order of business was the roads program, which is often code for CME, the pimps bankrolling the Aberdeen Democrats’ election campaigns. And then there was the gift to Coppola & Coppola, another reliable contributor, to do another study on the train station project that we’ve been hearing about for a decade.

So, look at spending and the tax levy. Taxes have a habit of jumping during the off-election years and we’ll see if that trend continues this year.

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