"Where Is The
Outrage? Where Is The Truth?" Asks Commentator Robert Bressman After
Township Officials Admit $600,000 Vasil Settlement Deal Was Cut Last
May, And They Have Been Covering It Up Ever Since
Ritacco "Less
Than Truthful" About 12/12 Referendum
Robert C. Bressman has been
sharp-shooting conspicuous waste in the local government and the Toms
River Regional School System for more than five years.
Bressman opposed the recent $13.4
million school referendum as "wasteful." and identified School
Superintendent Michael Ritacco as "less than truthful" about the
spending in the plan's components.
"All he needs now is a pair of maroon
trousers, a checkered shirt, white belt and white shoes," Bressman
said of Ritacco, alluding to the superintendent's conversion of the
regional school system into "part education and part show business."
"He should have been a used car
salesman," Bressman said.
Where Is All The
Money?
|
Ritacco |
"Where is all the money," Bressman
asked, citing the "Ritacco Center, the 1144 Cafe, the daycare center,
the deal with the computer companies, the summer carnival and now the
indoor sports bubble?"
"The kids aren't getting the money,"
Bressman said, adding that "nobody has ever seen a balance sheet on
Ritacco's Show Biz projects."
Mayor & Council
"Refuse To Talk" About $600,000 Settlement
|
Brush "Settled" |
Bressman said the $600,000 wrongful
dismissal settlement by the township with Richard Vasil amounts to
"gross negligence," noting the "mayor and council refuse to talk about
the settlement" reached last May 27th, but not reported until the
settlement document was leaked to the media two weeks ago.
Vasil Was Fired By
Brush In January, 2004
Vasil, a Republican, was fired in
January of 2004 by newly elected Mayor Paul Brush, allegedly for not
wearing a tie and keeping his office door locked when he went to
lunch.
Vasil's $75,000 "Human Resources
Director" job was created for him by the previous Republican
administration.
Vasil's Wife, Betty,
Is A Republican Patronage Fixture
|
Betty Vasil: "One of Gilmore's most reliable
patronage desciples" |
Vasil's wife, Betty, is the clerk for
the Republican Freeholder Board. Betty Vasil is also a member of the
Republican Regional School board and a disciple of Ritacco and
Republican school board attorney and County Republican Chairman George
Gilmore.
Vasil filed suit after Brush fired him.
The lawsuit could have easily been settled a month after it was filed,
but Gilmore and Republican Council President Gregory McGuckin allowed
the lawsuit to linger and fester for more than two years.
Lawyers Get $219,000,
Vasil Gets $381,000
The result is the "settlement," instead
of being a few thousand dollars, ended up as a bonanza for
politically-connected lawyers "working" on the lawsuit ($219,000), as
well as Vasil himself ($381,000).
|
Has
McGuckin's law firm ever done legal work for any of the Joint
Insurance Funds?? |
Bressman Says
It's "Gross Negligence"
Bressman noted the taxpayers "had to
shell out $100,000" for what Council President Gregory McGuckin, a
pay-to-play lawyer himself, calls an insurance "co-pay."
"This is gross negligence," Bressman
says. "How about the truth? What really happened?" he asked in a
letter printed January 12th in the Ocean County Observer.
The balance of the $600,000 settlement
was paid by the Joint Insurance funds that insure the township, pubic
entities for which a number of Gilmore-favored attorneys have
performed legal services for compensation by the hour.
This article prepared for publication on January 14, 2007.
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