Your Turn
Tom Ridgway
Guest Column
Resident urges officials to work together

As a relatively new resident to Millstone Township, I have become somewhat disenchanted with the politics of our town. I have been attending township meetings since March 17 and can honestly say I have serious concerns with how our town is being managed. Our town is experiencing a substantial growth period as people such as my wife and I move to Millstone to enhance the quality of our lives. However, since we have moved here, political issues and the lack of serious leadership from our mayor and deputy mayor have been a cause of great concern for me.

Our town is facing some very serious issues and needs serious leadership to allow us to work together to identify and resolve issues for the good of all residents. Our town has a large base of educated, competent, responsible people who should be encouraged to work together with fellow residents and our elected committee members to identify solutions to our common issues.

An open forum should be an active topic of conversation among residents and committee members. This will allow input on critical issues such as ratables and property taxes from all people directly affected by them. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that an open forum is a viable solution. At the same meeting, township resident William Kastning suggested that the Economic Development Council (EDC) was the forum that exists for discussion/resolution of these important issues.

In a perfect world this may be true, but the resurrection of the EDC has been anything but productive. It is my understanding that since the EDC was resurrected by the mayor and deputy mayor, two scheduled meetings have not taken place, one meeting was canceled due to incomplete attendance by EDC members, one meeting was an election to appoint the chairman, etc., and the meeting scheduled for June 22 did not take place until June 29. Furthermore, all current members of the EDC were appointed by the mayor and deputy mayor, and the (elected) chairman is the current Regular Republican candidate for committeeman, Bob Kinsey. Mr. Kinsey (coincidentally) is supported by the same RCEC group that fully supports the current mayor and deputy mayor.

I offered my assistance to the committee to review the expenses associated with IT support, Internet connectivity, Web hosting and telephone services at the municipal building. After a few productive meetings with Maria Dellasala and James Pickering, I was able to offer suggestions as to how our town can reduce expenses relating to these services by approximately $10,000 annually. Think of what can be accomplished if other residents are encouraged to work together for the good of our town.

During my research I encountered a Web site owned by our Mayor, Nancy Grbelja, that states: "This township belongs to all of us — let’s take it back." In fact, the township has not gone anywhere, it has and always will belong to all of its residents. Furthermore, Elias Abilheira posted an article ridiculing Committeeman John Pfefferkorn. Although Mr. Pfefferkorn and Elias have had numerous "discussions" about the budget, Elias has chosen to ridicule Mr. Pfefferkorn’s name with his "Fact or Pfiction" and "Pfefferkorn Pfiction vs. the real story about municipal debt" stories on Mayor Grbelja’s Web site. Is this the type of behavior we should expect from an elected committeeman?

In an Examiner article dated May 6, Mr. Pfefferkorn outlined his concerns with the direction of the budget not once naming a co-committee person in the article. Whether Elias agrees or disagrees with Mr. Pfefferkorn, he chose to write a counter article that referenced Mr. Pfefferkorn by name 12 times. In a follow-up article, Mr. Pfefferkorn referred to Ms. Grbelja and Elias as "rookie committeeman." Although Elias has taken exception to this statement, he is in fact a rookie committeeman according to the definition of the word rookie.

If you go to the mayor’s Web site and view the "Your Representatives" section, you will see only two names: Ms. Grbelja and Mr. Abilheira when in fact we have five committee members. It is time for this type of behavior to stop. Our town faces serious issues and the mayor and deputy mayor should encourage participation from all residents to work together toward solutions.

Tom Ridgway is a resident of Millstone