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Maria
Maruca |
The long trail of repression and greed by the Ocean County Republican
leadership extended again this week as the Dover Township Council,
through a Monmouth County Republican Freeholder, killed a program of
council meeting broadcasts on Comcast Cable.
.Many citizens, including Rescue Dover council candidates Robert Silva
and Walter Seymour, have demanded that council meetings be carried on
public TV since before the 7-0 Republican council monopoly took office
in January of 2004.
After Years Of Lame Excuses From McGuckin, Schiff Donated TV
Coverage; Comcast Killed The Program Ten Days Later
After two years of lame excuses and stonewalling by the GOP council
monopoly, OCP editor Richard Schiff donated the
production costs to begin televising council meetings, and the
September 6th meeting on the pay-to-play referendum was aired four
times.
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Smiling McGuckin |
TV Coverage Was Apparently
Too Much For Pay-To-Play Lawyer
This was
apparently too much for pay-to-play lawyer Gregory McGuckin, the
council president whose law firm takes in more than $1.2 million a
year from public no-bid legal services contracts.
Did McGuckin Move The Mike To
Provide The Excuse To Kill TV Coverage
At the next regular council meeting, during the proclamation sequence
intermission, McGuckin picked up the OCP microphone from
its position in front of the dais, and moved it around to the other
side of the meeting room conference table for the obvious purpose of
making some council statements difficult to understand.
McGuckin "Didn't Know Whose Microphone It Was"
Then Freeholder Clifton Killed TV Broadcasts
McGuckin claimed he "didn't know whose microphone he was moving, even
though the OCP mikes were the only ones in the room that didn't belong
to the township.
Then, like night follows day, Monmouth County Republican Freeholder
Robert Clifton, a Comcast "Government Affairs Liaison" employee,
cancelled the TV broadcasts, claiming he "received some complaints"
regarding the audio quality.
"Baldaccini Says Council "Pulled The
Plug" On "Public Meetings"
Second Ward Democratic candidate Mark Baldaccini told the Ocean County
Observer that McGuckin, Clifton and the Republican council "literally
pulled the plug on the TV coverage."
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Baldaccini |
Echoing numerous Dover Township residents, Baldaccini said "these are
public meetings; the public has a right to watch the proceedings in
the convenience of their own homes."
McGuckin Lies Again, This
Time Directly To The Observer
After Freeholder Clifton (R-Monmouth) killed the broadcasts, McGuckin
said he and the Republican council "have been in complete support of
televising meetings for the past 20 months," a lie with the same
essential qualities as Republican campaign promises to "cut wasteful
spending" and "hold the line on taxes."
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Brian Kubiel |
Seymour And Silva Lodge FCC Complaint
Rescue Dover Township candidates Walter Seymour (Ward II) and Bob
Silva (Ward I), running against incumbent McGuckin ward council
stooges Maria Maruca and Brian Kubiel, left no doubt where they stood
on the TV coverage issues.
Investigate Collusion And
First Amendment Repression
Seymour and Silva asked the Federal Communications Commission to
investigate "the abrupt termination of council meeting coverage" and
the inevitable questions of collusion and first amendment repression
that have been one of the hallmarks of McGuckin and the conspiracy of
greed that has dominated government in Dover Township since the new
government took office.
The FCC complaint will be the subject of the next article on this
issue; in the meantime, readers can amuse themselves by watching
McGuckin move the microphone, and reprising another surprisingly
similar controversy that developed at the DMUA earlier this year.
