Be careful of folks spreading b.s. about Clerk/ Sheriff

County Clerk Jeff Parrott and Sheriff Mike Strada are both reformers who have reorganized their departments, cut spending, increased revenues, and saved taxpayers millions.  Over the past few years, certain freeholders have attempted to mess with their offices which are – by design and by law – INDEPENDENT of the Freeholders who, as we have seen time and time again, have enough to do to keep from messing up what they’re in charge of. 

But that hasn’t prevented them from casting a jealous eye at two departments that are reducing staffing while increasing revenue to the taxpayers (Also-Known-As “property tax relief”).  The opportunities by the Board to slip in a favored employee or two are great, but have been resolutely resisted by Parrott and Strada.   

And so it seems that those certain someones on the Board have leaned on the county’s largest (?) newspaper to stir the pot and lay out some propaganda with which to smear our Clerk and Sheriff.  After all, the Board and the newspaper share the same lawyer. 

Take the Clerk’s office as a for instance.  At a Board meeting earlier this summer, one of the Freeholders crowed and scratched like some bellicose rooster.  He was on and on about a word he had just discovered, called “breakage.” 

He was so fond of the word that he used it over and over again… whether it was the appropriate word or not.  He liked the sound of the word. It made a pleasant, romantic sound, not unlike the word “garbage.”  But there you are.

What he was actually talking about was people.  Good people who work for the county’s taxpayers and who are earning for the taxpayers from their good work hundreds of thousands in revenue that wasn’t there before – revenue that is going back to the county as property tax relief.  If only those certain members of the Board will allow it, not spend it, on shit like lawyers studies, at over $8,000 a page… to tell us silly stuff that we already know. 

Under Jeff Parrott, the Clerk’s office has cut its staff and has not hired extra staff – even when two employees became seriously ill and could not work. Instead, their duties were split up and reassigned to those remaining staff.  And they still handled more documents, collected more fees, and earned more revenue for the County and property tax relief for the taxpayers. So one would think that, having come out so far ahead, nobody would begrudge those hard working employees (who made do with less staff and covered for their two grievously ill compatriots) a small bonus in their pay packets, by way of a thank you. 

Oh, but that’s where our rooster comes in.  “It’s breakage” he snorts!  Of course, it’s not “breakage” when they spend a half million on a no-bid contract for a friend who produces a thin report that isn’t worth the paper to wipe your bunghole with.  “Why that thar is goooood gov’ment,” says the rooster.

So let’s be very wary about a rooster who crows to distract us from the real issues facing the county’s taxpayers.

The arrogance of young Nathan Orr

Maybe it's his involvement with the Tea Party?  Or maybe it's just the way he's been raised?  Rarely, very rarely, has there been a more bold-faced exposition of smug, youthful arrogance than the letter to the editor, written by Nathan Orr, and published by the New Jersey Herald on November 1st.

But which Nathan Orr is this? 

Is it Nathan Orr the law partner, or Nathan Orr the software engineer, or Nathan Orr the accountant, or Nathan Orr the executive, or even Nathan Orr the 4th Grade school teacher?  No, it is Nathan Orr who graduated from Centenary College in 2013, spent time traveling through Europe courtesy of some family money, and whose first act as an adult appears to have been a campaign for political office. 

This is worth noting, because young Nathan called the Senator who represents him a "career politician."  Well, if he is, then he came to his career a lot later than Nathan Orr has. 

Unlike Nathan Orr, who went straight from undergraduate to political candidate, the man he so casually shits on had other responsibilities after his father died young. He went to work in New York City, met a girl, married, started a family, got involved in the Right-to-Life movement.  He became a Certified Public Accountant and worked for companies like W.R. Grace.  He was a senior financial officer for S&P 500 companies like Young & Rubicam and was sent to Europe to put newly acquired companies back on a healthy financial track.  And all this was before he ever even contemplated running for public office.

Remembering how hard his father had worked and his early death, he retired from corporate life to have more time to spend with his growing family.  He got involved as a coach for a number of youth athletic teams -- most notably as a football coach at Pope John High School.  He got involved in his town's economic development committee, local community organizations and charities, then was elected to borough council where he learned about municipal budgets and the problems local governments have to deal with. 

He ran for Freeholder and together with Hal Wirths and Gary Chiusano, reformed the county's budget process.  The successes of that board -- and later the board chaired by Jeff Parrott -- are looked upon today as the "good old days" of Sussex County government. 

And then, after a lifetime of learning and experience, only then did this so-called "career politician" consider running for the New Jersey Legislature. 

Not so Nathan Orr.  No sooner he was birthed from college he had his petitions to run for the New Jersey Legislature.  No place for humility when you are starting at the top.

Maybe it's the way he's been raised?

A common thread throughout civilizations is respect for age -- which is really just a way of acknowledging experience and the practical learning that comes with it.  Those who give respect, get it in return.  Not so our Nathan Orr. 

This young man casually dismisses the generally acknowledged feat his Senator accomplished by successfully negotiating five tax cuts from a position of weakness, one in which the Democrats controlled both chambers of the Legislature by hefty margins.  And his Senator accomplished this with the Democrats knowing that all they had to do was to run out the clock, wait until November 2017, when they can elect a new Democrat Governor.  Then they could have raised the gas tax as much as they like without any tax cuts.  Against all this, his Senator forged a compromise.

But the Senator's accomplishments are casually shit on by a young man whose most noteworthy negotiation to date has been securing his girlfriend's agreement to be engaged to him.  It is an amazing case of arrogance.

Maybe it's the way he's been raised?

Young Nathan Orr concludes his letter with a threat.  Speaking for his father as well, Nathan Orr writes:  "We accept your offer to meet before we decide whether or not to recall you."

Wow.  Somebody told that young man a story about how great he was and he believed it.

It's nice that Daddy Orr and Nathan Orr will get to spend some personal time to screw with their Senator.  Father and son can bond as they ignore what their Senator has to say, safe in the knowledge that they have all the answers -- even if they can't say how they got them. 

One person who won't be at that meeting is the Senator's son.  He's in public service too.  He's someone Nathan Orr might sneeringly call a "career government worker and son of a career politician." 

No, the Senator's son won't be at that meeting, standing by his old man's side like Daddy Orr will be by Nathan's.  And that's because the Senator's son is a U.S. Army Ranger, deployed in the fight to defeat terrorism.  Yeah, like his old man, he's a doer too.

Public service (whatever others may sneeringly call it) runs deep in some families.

By the way, did you sleep well last night?

The strange world of Herald comments

Could there be another Rick Meltz among them?

If you want to see the sick side of human behavior -- the jealousy, spite, and rage that lurks behind those Sussex County smiles -- you need go no further than the webpage of the New Jersey Herald.  A recent story about Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose accepting a job as the town manager in the town she was born, raised, resides, and is raising her three children in brought out those rage drunks who have made Littell-hating a sport since before old Sheriff Littell tried to close down that Nazi Bund camp near Newton.

Many of those posting were probably in attendance at the funeral of the late Senator Bob Littell, who died in November of last year.  They stood in line and swapped stories about how the old Senator had come to their town's rescue with needed money.  About how much their property taxes would have had to go up if the Senator had not come through for them.  They reminded each other about how he helped them all and they consoled his widow, embraced her, smiled.

Now two months later they were in a hot sweat posting anonymous hate-barbs against Bob Littell's widow, barely managing to suppress orgasms.  Calling her the "wicked witch" they even attacked the late Senator's son, who many of them had forgotten until seeing him again at his father's funeral.  One anonymous commenter dug up a lawsuit against the son -- someone with no connection to politics at all -- and the Herald left it on its website.  As if the Herald and its owners and employees had never had a lawsuit to contend with.

Deep into their orgasmic, head-thumping rage, the Herald web comment team even attacked County Clerk Jeff Parrott and Surrogate Gary Chiusano with a vicious old lie hatched during the 2013 primary between Chiusano and lawyer Alicia Ferrante.  When Gary Chiusano tried to politely correct them, they lost it, they popped their corks and released an ocean of hate-filled spew.

About the only person some of those commenting appear to like is former Freeholder Glen Vetrano, whose six-figure pension was defended on the grounds that he had been a public employee in Paterson. While there can be a reasonable difference of opinion on the state's pension laws, it is unreasonable to defend a six-figure pension for a state employee while attacking the much smaller pension of a soldier just returning from Afghanistan.  Paterson may not be the safest city in America, but it is not Afghanistan. 

There is a lot of dark, closeted rage out there.  We see it come out from time to time in forums such as that provided by the New Jersey Herald.  What other forms it takes may be less obvious but could be more serious.