Sign was in the wrong place at wrong time

On Wednesday morning, April 18, the day after the school elections, I had occasion to travel on Route 524 between Allentown and Hamilton. And as a taxpayer and citizen, I was outraged.

Why? Because I found a large, multicolor sign, obviously erected several days earlier, announcing "Future entrance - Upper Freehold Middle School," just past Belissimo's Pizza as one heads toward Hamilton.

There is something terribly wrong when a school board presupposes what the outcome of a referendum will be; there is also something wrong with the expenditure of money on a sign that had no business even being fabricated until the vote was counted, and all the permits and other assorted paperwork is finalized for a school's location on a site - whether it would be the Breza Road site or the Ellisdale Road site.

That sign was a sure indicator of the arrogance of this school board. For a body of elected school board representatives to let that sign go up prior to the election, it makes me wonder about the motivations underlying the entire project.

I'd like public answers to the following questions. Who authorized that sign and when and why? What was the total cost for its fabrication and installation? What monies were used to pay for its fabrication and installation?

An additional note is worth mentioning. The Reach an Educated Decision group conveniently misled the public about its tax-deductible status, the type of organization it was registered as with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), and by failing to properly identify itself (stating its ELEC registry number) on its own Web site until pressed to make the appropriate corrections. Unfortunately, all of this "fact finding and truth telling" came at a late hour, after the damage was already done and donation money was raked in. I would also request a full public disclosure - in this newspaper - of the sum of all monies collected and to whom such sums were disbursed. After all, this is what the Reach An Educated Decision Web site advertises: Following the April 17 vote, surplus funds in our account will be donated to another school-related organization (i.e., PTA, Education Foundation, etc.).

Accountability. It begins at home. And home is here, in Upper Freehold Township. Let's make sure such a disgraceful occurrence never happens again.

Walter F. Helfrecht

Upper Freehold Township