Last week, Warren County Freeholder Jason Sarnoski wrote in to the Herald to applaud Sussex County Freeholder candidate Herb Yardley for proposing that Sussex County voters be given the opportunity to decide on any future borrowing in the county. That's right, Herb Yardley's idea is that before the county goes off on yet another half-baked scheme that will put it deeper into debt, the idea would get debated, placed on the ballot, and the voters would decide.
The idea is currently at work in Warren County and in individual municipalities in Sussex County -- like Newton, where the voters recently got to decide if they wanted to go $18 million into debt or not. The proposal was placed on the ballot and voters were asked to approve more than $18 million in bonds to fund the expansion and renovation of the Merriam Avenue School. The $18.69 million in new debt (bonds) would have increased the tax burden on the average home by $337 annually over the next 20 years. 959 voters said "no" and 238 voters said "yes" -- so the borrowing didn't happen.
Dan Perez' philosophy is to take the power to decide away from the voters and give it to local politicians. He would rather the taxpayers pay an additional $337 in property taxes because -- in Dan Perez' philosophy -- average taxpayers are not lawyers like him, and so they are too stupid to be trusted to decide on issues like the debt they and their children and grandchildren will be paying over the next twenty years. Dan Perez is liberal elitism at its worst.
When you think back on all the spending "mistakes" that the Sussex County Freeholder Board has made, can we afford more of them? Dan Perez thinks so.
Dan Perez is a Democrat running for Freeholder. Perez is a New York lawyer who has helped many a county insider with their legal troubles. Perez is himself an insider, who has been appointed to two patronage jobs courtesy of the county Freeholder Board.
Responding to Jason Sarnoski, Dan Perez argued the case for county political insiders across New Jersey. Perez said to "trust" the political establishment in New Jersey, despite the fact that it is one of the most corrupt in America.
Democrat Perez pointed to urban Democrat machine strongholds like Hudson County, Essex County, Passaic County, Union County, and Camden County as places that Sussex County should emulate. Perez asked his followers to reject the fiscal conservative example of neighboring rural Warren County in favor of these cesspits of county corruption -- where literally hundreds of politicians and patronage holders have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to corruption of one sort or another. Perez is asking us to embrace this filth.
Fortunately, most taxpayers know better. They want their government back in their own hands. They want a plan to get the county out of debt, so that we can begin to talk about getting property taxes under control.
The people who pay property taxes know that the Democrats' talk of lowering them is pure bullshit (because they are the party of higher property taxes) and that the Republicans' hopes to lower them are pie-in-the-sky until we get spending and debt under control. Neighboring Warren County has such a plan.
While Sussex County was stumbling from crisis to crisis, from scandal to scandal, Warren County passed an ordinance that prevented its politicians from borrowing without first getting the approval of the taxpayers. It is a reform that works!
What it does is this: Before any long-term borrowing can happen, it must first go on the ballot for the voters to decide whether or not they think it is a worthy project and they want to pay for it. The ordinance doesn't say that you can't borrow, it just says that you must get permission from the voters -- the people paying the taxes -- first.
Once this ordinance is passed, the politicians on the Sussex County Freeholder Board will have to ask the taxpayers for permission the next time someone comes up with a scheme to use tax money to place solar panels all over the place, or to build a new county administration building, or to finance the sale of the county dump to private investors. It would put any of these crazy ideas on hold until the voters can properly scrutinize the plans and then place it on the ballot for the voters to decide.
No wonder insiders like Dan Perez are pissing their pants!
Some insiders make an argument that begins with the words, "what about an emergency" -- when they darn well know that the ordinance makes exclusions for emergencies. It also makes exclusions for anticipatory borrowing, where the money is promised to the county. What it ends is borrowing just to spend money and give contracts to other insiders.
Insiders like Dan Perez are livid over this legislation and at how it threatens them and their fellow insiders. But taxpayers are sick and tired of being pissed-on by people like Dan Perez. This is a reform that is long overdue.
Sussex County Watchdog
Perhaps the "Skylands" blog is run from the basement of Freeholder Rose's computer business? Maybe cop-hater Dave Fanale is involved? After all, the disgraced Fanale did live with Freeholder Rose after he quit the Franklin Council.
