Editor's Note: This editorial by veteran Dover Municipal Utilities Authority Commissioner Robert K. Haelig Jr. was published in the Ocean County Observer August 26th in support and response to the Observer's editorial entitled "Taxpayers Need To Know More About OCUA .

Mr. Haelig has been a critic of County Utilities Authority financial policies for  25 years, and pointed out many times that bad financial management by the OCUA has given the agency "the highest county sewer rates in North America."

After promising an expose for 5 years, the Gannett papers are finally running something today, Sunday, October 2nd and Monday, October 3rd. With respect to the OCUA, the Gannett series amounts to a whitewash of OCUA policies.

Part One of Commissioner Haelig's editorial follows:

To the Observer:

Your editorial “Taxpayers need to know more about OCUA land proposal” makes some excellent points, but several claims in the editorial are based on premises that need clarification.

The old Ortley Beach sewer treatment property wasn’t something that Dover Township “gave” the Ocean County Utilities Authority; the property and related structures and equipment were sold by the Dover Municipal Utilities Authority to the OCUA for $12.5 million in 1981.

Sewer Plant Income Squandered

By the time it was received, the money had already been squandered by the folks in charge of the DMUA at the time, creating a big budget deficit that resulted in a big sewer rate increase.

The OCUA operated the Ortley treatment plant for a couple of years until its own facilities came on stream, and the property has been idle ever since.

$250,000 Substation Grant Never Used

The administration that preceded the current new government in Dover Township got a grant for about $250,000 in 2002 or 2003 to build a police substation on part of the OCUA property, but the grant was never used despite “firm” promises by Councilwoman Maruca and other officials.

Instead, the Republican council (including Ms. Maruca) approved a bogus “substation” in a rented room ($300 a month) with a fax machine and a telephone in the Ortley First Aid building and got their pictures in the Observer at the “dedication.”

Your editorial suggests the “OCUA still has a lot of debt,” the price you claim of building a network of treatment facilities, and “isn’t in a giving mood.”

If OCUA Managed Its Debt Competently, Treatment
Facilities Could Have Been Funded Out Of Petty Cash

It is true that the OCUA has a huge debt, but it is most certainly NOT true that the bulk of the current “debt” is from the construction of treatment facilities and pipelines.

The local share of construction costs was less than $75 million, which the OCUA borrowed in the 70’s, and could have paid off out of petty cash at a fraction of the current county sewer rate.

If the OCUA had managed its debt competently, and operated internally on anything close to a cost-effective basis instead of quickly becoming the political reward capitol of North America, the agency would now be debt free and the county sewer rate would be half the current $3350 per million gallons, possibly the highest county sewer rate on the planet.

Greed, Incompetence And Bad Judgement

Primary victims of greed, incompetence and bad judgement at the OCUA are Dover Township taxpayers (18% of the regional system) who paid (and still pay) through the nose to enrich investment bankers, consultants and lawyers allowed repeatedly to loot and plunder the agency.

There is a $4 million cumulative greed component out of the $11.5 million now paid annually to the OCUA by Dover MUA ratepayers which funds the privilege of being repeatedly screwed by the counterfeit “Republican” OCUA team of financial geniuses with political connections.

Counterfeit GOP Process Proceeding Now At DMUA

The same counterfeit Republican process is now proceeding currently at the 2005 DMUA where the local division of the county Republican greed conspiracy has created the biggest single-year deficit in the DMUA’s history ($5.3 million), and on the Dover Township council, where counterfeit “Republicans” have shamed traditional Republican principles by enacting huge spending and tax increases after promising to cut spending and hold the line on taxes.

This concludes Part I of Commissioner Haelig's OCUA editorial. Part II will be carried by OCP later this week.

Robert K. Haelig Jr. – Commissioner DMUA; Republican Committeeman Ortley Beach and A Critic Of Current Republican Policies Both In Dover Twp. And Ocean County

The writer has been an active Republican for nearly 50 years – and a public official for most of that time. He served as Co-Chairman of College Republicans to Re-Elect President Eisenhower (1956); Elected Middlesex Borough Council (Republican - 1965); elected NJ General Assembly (Republican – 1967 & 1969); District Representative for Republican Congressman Peter H. B. Freylinghuysen (1972-3); Director Middlesex Borough Republican Club (1963-73); President Dover Township Republican Organization – 1979-1985 as local Republican candidates won every election; Elected Republican District Committee numerous times including the present, District 26 – Ortley Beach; served as Commissioner Dover Municipal Utilities Authority for nearly 26 years, never missed a single meeting of the authority, possibly the best attendance record in the history of NJ public agencies. Served numerous times as DMUA Chairman and Vice Chairman. He has the strongest credentials of any Republican in Dover Township and he is currently urging the replacement of the current Republican leadership in Dover Township, both on and off the township council.