Friday, November 1, 2013

Pohatcong Elections 2013 : A Mixed Bag This Year

Will it be SHOW time this year?

 
With an expected blow-out win by the current Governor, it is expected that turn-out this year will be lighter than in past gubernatorial elections but there is nonetheless both some drama and boredom that has developed on the local political front.

This year's Council election has both incumbents, Mary Van Lieu and Dave Slack, seeking new terms against a couple of lackluster, ho-hum, challengers.  Both Slack and Van Lieu can share credit along with the Mayor and other Council members with doing the hard and seemingly, thankless, work of trimming the municipal budget and keeping taxes flat for the last two years - in spite of some black holes opening up on the revenue side. Having met this challenge, it is doubtful that voters will turn away and head towards uncharted waters-especially since even more challenging times lie ahead.  Their opponents, Curt Weihz and Marc Metzger, have thus far run uninspiring campaigns and each comes with their own particular set of well, lets say, personal issues and personality flaws. Meanwhile, it never hurts to have the endorsement of Pohatcong's popular young Mayor, Jim Kern, who has signed off on the Slack / Van Lieu tandem.  Come Election Day, voters are likely to concur.

Well if the Council race has seemed like a big yawn so far, then the same cannot be said for the Pohatcong School Board election which is being fully contested for the first time that anyone can remember.  Victimized by their own ineptness and increasingly out of touch with the tax-paying public, four of the current school board members will be hard pressed to hang onto their seats this year as they face a determined and well organized challenge from the SHOW coalition (Cindy Semonche, Jamie Hudak, Bill Oertel, and Scott Weeks).  Perhaps weighing most heavily on the minds of voters will be the inability of the current board to stop the never-ending budget increases along with the ongoing poor academic results.  Adding to the woes of the current board is the controversial solar panel field project which most of the town residents seem now to oppose. Having been targeted to be finished this past summer, yet new hurdles have cropped up delaying it's start.  An ominous sign perhaps for the current  incumbents and the word on the street says that some big time and overdue changes are a coming at the ballot box on November 5th. Sounds about right.

As in past years, Pohatcong Blog will be attempting to scoop, yet again, some of our local commercial media by posting Pohatcong election results as soon as we have them in hand (and beating those other guys to the punch).  Don't forget to check back here on election night for your local results.

 

8 comments:

  1. Board President Dean McBride and other Pohatcong school board incumbents brag about their fiscal responsibility in a misleading campaign flyer I received today.

    The school board incumbents brag that they reduced the school tax rate. School taxes actually increased by 2% -- the maximum amount that the school can increase taxes without voter approval. The only reason the school tax rate decreased marginally was a reassessment which increased the tax base by about 10%.

    ReplyDelete

  2. The incumbents also brag about their decision to spend $1.2 million for a solar panel field. And where did the school board get the $1.2 million for the solar panels? You guessed it: by overtaxing Pohatcong residents over many years. Meanwhile, according to the NJ School Performance Report issued this year by the Department of Education, 57% of all schools in the state and 84% of Pohatcong's demographic peer schools performed better than Pohatcong. The school board should be focused on EDUCATION rather than a solar field boondoggle.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do the challengers for township council seriously believe what they say, are they being feed information from an unreliable source or are they just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks? Guess it's tough to come up truthful negative criticism for this current council. Slack & Van Lieu have been just what this township needed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From your Pohatcong Property Tax Bill.

    YEAR SCHOOL% TOWNSHIP%
    2011-2012 47.14% 30.00%
    2012-2013 47.56% 29.49%
    2013-2014 47.94% 29.11%

    All you have to do is check your bills and you will find that you pay more each year in school tax. School spending continues to increase each year. The truth will set you free or at least set you streight.
    If the school board has to resort to slight of hand and half truths to paint a rosey financial picture, would they do the same with reporting student performance, teacher evaluations, solar panel project expectations, etc.? Maybe I'm just being skeptical. After all,they tell us that they are "doing the right thing for our entire community.", even if that "thing" is not what the entire community wants.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Check out the SHOW Facebook page:


    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Committee-to-Elect-SHOW/472964332801506

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am looking forward to the election results posted here first.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Order of finish tonight looks to be: Slack, Van Lieu, Metzger, Weihz.....just saying..... expecting official results after 9:00 or so.

      Delete
    2. Results have changed with the tally of absentee ballots. Winner of school board election are 3 of the 4 SHOW candidates. Change is coming!! Congrats to Scott Weeks, Jamie Hudak and Cindy Semonche

      Delete