April
11, 2014
Dear Council Members:
Well you got us in the “news” once again…last Sunday’s
edition of the Asbury Park Press. A couple of my friends who live
elsewhere called me to ask if I lived in a cesspool of political corruption. I
really didn’t know how to answer that and stop them from laughing.
You are making a laughing stock of our community!
In the same article the attorney for the Borough gloated
about the “victory” he achieved in court. I am wondering if he skipped the law
school classes on trial strategy…it is never a good idea to gloat after a court
ruling…all it does is solidify the resolve of the other party…very bad mistake
on his part.
On the same subject…when the Republicans regained the
majority on the Council, among the first things done was to fire the counsel
hired by the Democrats when they were in the majority and hire back the long
term hack Dasti back. The reason cited by Mr. Sobosik was that the firm was
sending people to represent the Borough other than the ones interviewed for the
job. Then, what was the son of Mr. Dasti doing in the courtroom representing
the Borough on a very important matter?
I keep forgetting what hypocritical means…can you help me out?
After the financial collapse of the Borough and an attempt
by Mr. Leitner to remediate the situation, the citizens of the Borough were
told, “we have the finances of the Borough under control”. In fact, Mr. Sobosik
stated in a newspaper article, “…see, we are not in bad shape after all”. Not a
word was uttered that expensive forensic type audits were on-going and actually
not everything was quite right. Not a word was mentioned that there may have
been THEFT of public funds! We have
to read about that in the newspaper.
Nepotism is a problem in Point Pleasant Borough employment.
The women named as a defendant in the personnel lawsuit hired her daughter.
Neither Maffei nor the Council said a thing about how that appears. Then the
Police Chief hires his own son as a police officer and not a word. Do you want
to know why our Chief Administrator and Police Chief approved these hires?
Because they could and neither one of them gave it a second thought. The
fact that the Council has never given these highly compensated individuals any
guidance about their performance essentially gives them free reign to do
anything they want…no oversight, no personnel policies, no performance reviews!
These are severe failings of the Council.
Despite the fact that Messrs. Schroeder and Leitner are of
the opinion that the basis of the personnel lawsuit is untrue and the legal
action is frivolous, the reason that the charges are so believable is that the
Borough employees are completely unsupervised and as a result they believe they
can do just about anything, including stealing and/or misappropriating taxpayer
money. The really outrageous part of this is that taxpayers are now footing the
massive accounting bills for failure of the Council to put in place the proper
financial safe-guards, conduct proper oversight and set policies to guide the
staff about their behaviors. Did this happen because the Council members don’t
k now how to perform these tasks, or because the Council members are just not “doers”?
I have been led to believe that the Council is “working on”
a performance evaluation process for highly compensated Borough personnel. Can
I remind you that our Declaration of Independence (unmatched
in its eloquence and expanse) was written by Thomas Jefferson overnight? What
could possible take so long?
I have always been very curious about exactly what local
elected officials think they were elected to do. I have served on many boards
of many different types. Over the years my observation has been that there are
“doers” and “loafers” on all boards and councils. Some take their jobs very seriously
and get things done. Others simply show up and are there primarily for ego
enhancement. The latter too often are not very interested in controversy and
when the heat turns up in the kitchen they are nowhere to be found…making tough
decisions and defending them rarely contributes to ego enhancement. There comes
a time when each of the Borough Council members has to conduct a
self-assessment and come to terms with who they really are. I can assure you
that the next elections are not going to be a cake-walk…all of these recent
developments and the continual shortcomings are going to be answered for either
positively or negatively.
There are seven Council members (but only six for whom there
are website pictures…thanks Mr. Borowsky for the picture on the website,
finally). I have written to the current Council four times in the past few months.
I have received responses from three and once four among Council members. Messrs.
Wisniewski, Furmato and Borowsky have never responded to me. That is regretful
for many reasons, but chief among them is that as a Borough resident, I am
entitled to know what they are thinking and what they are doing. It is time for
all the platitudes of electioneering to turn into action of some kind. If it is
your opinion that you do not have to respond to your constituents, then start
looking for a new volunteer activity. If someone told you that the Council job
was easy and that you only have answer to people who are NOT critical of your
actions, then you were seriously misled.
As a final note, I renew my criticism of the Borough
Website. It is dull, boring, unrepresentative and riddled with errors. I
suppose that I should simply just throw up my hands and admit… “par for the
course”. I wish someone would simply explain to me how things work in Point Pleasant…everyone knows the Website is lousy. So
what is the pathway to improvement…does the Council have to vote agreement that
it is lousy? If the Council does, what happens next? Is the need for
improvement request passed on to the staff? Does a Council person take on the
responsibility? How exactly do things happen? Does anybody get a report on
progress? Is there any oversight?
I have served as CEO of several national not-for-profit
organizations. If someone brought up that the website is not up to standard I
would be mortified that I hadn’t already reviewed the website, sought
professional help for design and implementation, etc. That aside, if I were the
highly compensated administrator of the Borough, I would take on the responsibility
and get the improvements done. Then, I would report back to the Council that
the task was done and stage a little “show-and-tell” for the Council and the
audience at a Council meeting. In other words, make sure the job was done,
demonstrate that I understand accountability and take credit for a job well
done. Exactly what am I missing here? Would you take a moment and explain to me
what I am missing and how things get done…how things work. Thanks.
Dr. Ian R. Horen
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