HERE COMES LIBERAL CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT

Recently, Democrats took control of Monmouth County’s Board of Chosen Freeholders. Since 1986 Democrats have long been locked out of leadership in government on the county level in Monmouth County New Jersey. They have not held a single seat on the county’s governing body.  Not since recent years when, slowly, they have managed to elect one and even two new Freeholders. The most recent election helped elect another Democrat. The importance of that third Democrat Freeholder was pivotal. On a board of 5, it meant control of county government. The Republican loss of control in Monmouth may or may not have been deserved. But what is not deserved, is the certain lack of quality that Democrat control is promising to bring.

Since winning their third Freeholders seat, Democrats have gone out of their way to demonstrate that politics, not policy will rule the day.The first thing that the liberal troika of Freeholders did was to discuss who would become their ringleader. The three of them held private conversations that led to a private vote which elected one of them to be the Freeholder Director. Never mind that there were two other members of the board that should have been consulted and a part of the decision. They were Republicans and after all, who really cares about the democratic process?

 

So with partisan politics at the forefront, Democrats held their own election and released an independent press release that informed the people, including the two Republican Freeholders, of who will be the new director. You would think that the new liberal regime would at least try to seem inclusive and decent but no, not these guys.

Now, days after installing their own leader, the new leadership is promising to cost county residents even more money than their policy initiatives will burden taxpayers with.

They are pushing for the creation of new positions. New, high paying positions. Positions that spread some of their own responsibilities, such as oversight, to people other themselves.

In several areas, the liberal Freeholders want to create new bureaucratic positions that they intend to fill through the time held tradition of patronage.

To make matters worse, the new regime is trying to replace existing county employees, who are Republican, with fellow Democrats simply because they are not Democrats.

That is not unheard of in the world of partisan politics, but what is a bit of real impropriety, is that they are trying to replace those who hold jobs that are classified as civil service positions. Individuals holding civil service positions can’t be removed from the job without just cause yet something as menial as the law is not getting in the way of the Democrats. Without any proof or evidence, they are trying to claim that some of these civil servants have been insubordinate and inept. Proving that is going to be hard, especially since such charges were not levied by Democrats until they took control of the process.

Liberal State Party Boss, Assemblyman Joe Cryan

To add insult to injury, the new liberal Freeholders have left the decision of who to hire in Monmouth County up to Joe Cryan, an Assemblyman from Union County who represents the towns Elizabeth, Kenilworth, Roselle and Union, New Jersey. Even more important than his Assembly leadership, or lack of it,  is the fact that Joe Cryan is the chairman of New Jersey’s Democrat State Committee.

So not only have Monmouth County Democrats kicked off their reign with increased spending and a patronage driven direction, they have relinquished authority to a state party boss from a different county. Assemblyman Cryan’s own legislative chief of staff confirms this and admits that the Assemblyman has contacted state personnel departments and Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics about finding candidates for the Monmouth County positions of chief financial officer, directors of the human resources and human services departments, and the newest  new post of inspector general.

Isn’t this great. Not only is a state employee of a state legislator using state time to respond to political party business, his liberal party chief boss is appointing people to posts in a county that he neither lives in or is elected or hired to represent.

But at least the Democrats running Monmouth County’s Board of Freeholders will win favor with the state liberal party chieftain. I mean so long as the needs of party politics are being fulfilled, the citizens of Monmouth County will be taken care of.

Or will they?

The games being played by county Democrats prove that the people of  Monmouth are not the priority. Nor are the problems that need solving or the future troubles that need avoiding. Politics is what these characters have shown us to be their priority and as such, we have to hope that the state liberal party boss, Assemblyman Joe Cryan from Union County cares as much for the people of Monmouth County as he does for the people living in the towns of the district that he represents.

A visitor from Holland was chatting with his American friend and was jokingly explaining about the red, white and blue in the Netherlands flag. “Our flag symbolizes our taxes,” he said. “We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bill, and blue after we pay them.”

“That’s the same with us,” the American said, “only we see stars, too.”