Dear Neighbors & Fellow Homeowners:

Recently you received a letter from Mayor Glenn Cunningham on the subject of taxes along with your July tax bill. As usual with Glenn Cunningham, he tells half the story - the half that makes him look good. Consider:

Glenn Cunningham proudly told you in that July letter about his "no-increase" municipal tax bill but he failed to mention that he raided the Municipal Utilities Authority to pay for it. Also, your May water bills went up 8.8 percent as a result - with more increases to come.

Glenn Cunningham attacked County Government and me by name repeatedly, for the rise in Jersey City's contribution to the County tax levy. He didn't tell you that I inherited a management disaster from his hand-picked successor to Bob Janiszewski.

Cunningham's interim County Executive, controlled by cronies from Cunningham's inner circle, let overtime at the County Jail and Youth Detention Center spiral out of control, creating a threat to public safety and costing you more for less service.

The Cunningham crew in charge of the County were making a mess of welfare, not focusing on the job of moving people into work and self-sufficiency, costing you more in the process.

And though they took office in the wake of 9/11, they failed to address the need for a coordinated, Countywide response to the very real threat of bio-terrorism.

So in the first year on the job, I hired more corrections officers and juvenile detention officers to end the reckless overtime that left prisoners routinely guarded by officers on 16-hour shifts. (I'm proud to say we're on track to cut overtime by at least 40 percent this year.)

I hired additional welfare case workers so we can more effectively move people off public assistance and into work.

And I developed a partnership with Hudson Regional Health to address the need for a response to biological or chemical attack in this area.

These things cost money - and they were left undone by Glenn Cunningham's crew in County Government. In the long run, safer correctional institutions paying far less overtime, enough welfare case workers to actually get the job done of making welfare a second chance and not a way of life, and the terrorism response plan will make us better off and save tax dollars.

Glenn Cunningham's crew mucked up the County stable. Now that I have to clean it out, Cunningham has the gall to complain about the smell. Pretty outrageous. If you read the Jersey Journal last year, just before I took office, I predicted precisely this kind of mess was being left behind.

And of course Glenn Cunningham didn't tell you that the overall County tax rate actually declined from 6.94 to 6.72. He didn't tell you that total county budget was flat compared to the previous year- in part because we cut outrageous raises and took away cars he gave his pals, something WNBC-TV Channel 4's Tim Minton reported on earlier this year.

He didn't tell you that what we were forced to spend to clean up the Cunningham Crew's mess this year is jammed into two quarters of your bill rather than four because the county's budget year starts in January, not July. That means that the County line on your bill will go down next year. And I intend to keep it down now that County Government is under new management.

And sadly, Glenn Cunningham, who routinely runs political ads talking about how he is a "clean campaigner" doesn't tell you that your municipal tax dollars regularly pay for advertisements to keep a scandalous "Community Newspaper" afloat - one that regularly slanders public opponents of the mayor with a host of disgraceful falsehoods.

Glenn Cunningham and I held the same job in city government, city council president. When he held it, taxes exploded and a disastrous property revaluation drove people from their homes. When I held that job, we controlled taxes and improved property values.

To sum up folks: I'll put my overall public record on behalf of homeowners and taxpayers against Glenn Cunningham's any day.

Sincerely,

Thomas A. DeGise
Hudson County Executive

Follow Ups:

• Way to go Tom !!! Chakotay 22:49:36 09/08/03 (0)
• DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter Missuse of County Funds 13:49:14 09/08/03 (5)
  • Re: DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter ?????????? 14:01:07 09/08/03 (4)
    • Re: DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter HudsonObserver 14:42:06 09/08/03 (3)
      • Re: DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter J.P. Satre 22:52:45 09/08/03 (1)
        • Re: DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter JHR 23:06:56 09/08/03 (0)
      • Re: DeGise Squanders Tax Dollars on Political Letter Albert Camus 19:25:49 09/08/03 (0)