Aberdeen Dems Have Renewed Fiscal Sensitivity, But No Plan, No Compassion

The latest brochure from the Aberdeen Democrats -- PREPARED TO LEAD, READY TO SERVE -- offers the foursome's plan to move the township forward once they are elected. In essence, they plan to:

1. Spend carefully.
2. Be accountable for spending carefully.
3. Spend more of Trenton's money.
4. Be accountable for spending Trenton's money carefully.
5. Improve local quality of life by spending Trenton's money instead of ours.
   
6. Fix some local roads using Trenton's money.

What more could we ask for? Inside the brochure, the candidates offer the personal touch and show their community roots. Here's a summary of the warm feelings they have for you and the community at large. 

• Jim Lauro thinks you should be able to afford to live around here. "I'll fight to ensure our families can always afford to call our community home."
• Greg Cannon plans to be circumspect in his spending decisions on the Council.
• Fred Tagliarini thinks the community's quality of life is so important that he cannot come up with words to describe it. And he plans to protect whatever it is at all costs, albeit as cheaply as possible. He obviously doesn't want to see us all have to move away because we can't afford to live here anymore.
• Margaret Montone will protect your tax dollars as best she can. She has a plan to squeeze blood out of the township's turnip. I guess she'll be in charge of making sure Fred doesn't spend too much on quality of life and Jim has to watch our neighbors move out of town to find less expensive places to live.

The Dems have warm, fuzzy graphics and lots of signage, but be aware that they're not saying much about what they plan to do. And what they are saying is wrought with guilt for raising our taxes.

Speaking of taxes, I just got a full page letter from the Township Manager, Joseph Criscuolo, accompanying my new tax bill. Did you get one of those, too? I understood when he said it was a year of considerable economic challenges and that municipalities and businesses across the state have been severely impacted. I recognize that we've had budget shortfalls and I have no doubt that a tax increase was necessary. But Joe missed the point. The taxpayers didn't need his explanations. The Council needed to explain why so many residents have had to lose their homes. The Dems haven't found a way to preserve quality of life -- homeownership --, so why should they get our vote?