Haelig Letter To Local Media

To The Editor Of OceanCountyPolitics•Com:

Economics Lesson: Here Are Some Guides For Leading and Lagging Indicators In Local Government:

Useless spending and taxpayers money squandered on political payoffs are leading indicators that present themselves when they are enacted and approved.

Useless Spending In Barnegat, Dover, Beachwood,
Lacey Should Have Been Killed At Point Of Origin

These insults to the taxpayers should be identified and killed at the point of origin before they do irreparable damage which, in Dover Township and Beachwood and Lacey and Barnegat and too many other places in Ocean County, they already have.

Public officials who hand useless jobs to their friends, or give appointments to cronies and relatives who consistently waste money, should not hold public office.

Greed-Based Decisions Lead To No Progress

These are the malefactors of greed whose useless spending and wasted resources are the leading indicators of political duplicity and the absence of real progress.

Higher Taxes And Higher Sewer Rates Come Later

Higher Taxes and Sewer Rates, on the other hand, are lagging indicators that don’t present themselves until some point after the money is wasted, and sometimes even after public officials who did some or all of the damage are gone from public office.

Dem Mayor And Dover GOP Council Began Wasting Money On A Grand Scale The Day They Were Sworn In

The new Independent-turned-Democrat mayor and the seven pseudo-Republicans elected to the council in the new Dover Township government began wasting money on a grand scale the day they were sworn in, and they continued with a shameless hemorrhage of squandered public funds through their entire first year in office.

Political Giveaways To Gilmore ($80,000) And Troncone ($114,000) Were Leading Indicators And Set The Stage For Spending Hemorrhage & Tax Hike

It should come as no surprise that reckless and unnecessary spending, which included big political payments (with taxpayers money, of course) to the Republican County Chairman ($80,000 for George Gilmore) and his colleague, a former Democrat Freeholder ($114,000 for Mark Troncone), and numerous other greedy political cronies and political hacks (leading indicators), gave us a big tax increase many months after the useless spending was originally approved (lagging indicator).

Gilmore Flunkies Gave Us A $5.3 Million DMUA Deficit

Clip this letter and put it in your wallet: The new government appointees at the DMUA recently approved a budget (4 to 1) that brings the accumulated deficit of the most recent four years at the DMUA to $13.5 million (leading indicator).

"Keep This Wrinkled Letter & Remember I Told You So"

In three or four more years, when Dover sewer rates also go up exponentially (lagging indicator) because the reckless and irresponsible Pseudo-Republican Club stooges who squandered the vital reserves I assembled over 22 years have run out of money, you can pull this wrinkled letter out of your wallet and remember that I told you so.

Commissioner Robert K. Haelig Jr.
Dover Municipal Utilities Authority
The writer is a commentator on financial and political issues; he holds a Degree in Economics From Rutgers University

This article prepared for publication on April 5, 2005.