Coda
Attorney general says: Stealing gas a bad idea
GREG BEAN
So, N.J. Attorney General Anne Milgram, who grew up in East Brunswick, says her office will file criminal charges against government employees believed to have stolen gasoline from public agencies. Here's my question: It's a good idea, but why have they waited so long?

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.

Last December, a state auditor found a whole bunch of dicey gasoline purchases on the credit cards provided by the state to certain employees who drive some of the state government's 7,600 vehicles. According to published reports, in 2006 and 2007, the auditors found more than 600 gasoline purchases that exceeded the tank's capacity and 2,000 transactions where state employees filled up twice in a single day.

There's a simmering resentment among certain members of the public who believe the state's coddled employees already get more than they deserve. And for those members of the public, the notion that lots of state workers take their governmentowned vehicles home at the end of the day, and suspect they use those vehicles for personal use was just icing on the mud pie.

The fact that being provided a state vehicle to use when you go to the dry cleaners and the pharmacy on your Saturdaymorning errands wasn't enough - that some of these state employees milked the system for even more ought to be infuriating.

I'm kind of a cynic, so I don't believe we'd have heard an announcement like this from the attorney general unless gas had broken the $4 a gallonmark and people are getting a little psychotic about it. The state has to look like it's doing its part, after all.

But you really have to wonder why nobody thought prosecuting these thieves was a good idea until now. I guess when gas was $2.50 a gallon, it just wasn't worth the effort. • • • Speaking of the state government, Gov. Jon S. Corzine announced last week that he was naming a new press secretary, a guy named Sean Darcy, to replace his old press secretary, Lilo Stainton.

As I mentioned in a previous column, Stainton had maybe the worst job in state government, cleaning up after Corzine and the monumental flubs he made when speaking in public.

There was that whole business with his "townmeetings" to sell his proposal to hike the tolls on several state roads to the point that only people driving limousines could afford to use them. Those public meetings were more like witch burnings than informational sessions, and Stainton was busier than a one-legged flamenco dancer trying to keep up with her boss' blunders.

Then there was the time he made that goofy statement about the MOM (Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex) passenger railroad line being out and the MO (Monmouth, Ocean) line being in.

People in the audience, including folk from NJ Transit, which has been planning the various options for the line, nearly choked when he said that, and Stainton worked like a rented mule to explain what her boss really meant.

Whatever they were paying her, it was not enough, and maybe that's why she's on to greener pastures. Maybe she just realized there's no way to protect someone so determined to make himself look bad.

At any rate, I have a little advice for Darcy: No battle goes according to plan, so get ready to improvise.With Jon S. Corzine as a boss, you're gonna have to improvise like crazy to clean up his numerousmesses.

• • • Speaking of the proposed passenger rail line, otherwise known asMOM, I don't know if you caught it, but last week we ran a big story saying that now the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection hasmajor concerns about one of the proposed routes for the line.

Specifically, they're worried about the one that would cut through Monmouth Battlefield State Park.

I won't go into all the concerns expressed by the DEP, because you can read all about themin our story, but I will stress that this news comes on the heels of a letter written in 2005 by an archeologist and grant manager from the American Battlefield Protection Program - which is connected to the U.S. Department of the Interior - who also had serious problems with the passenger line going through the battlefield.

The state park is a national historic landmark that marks the site of the Battle of Monmouth, which was fought on June 28, 1778, between American and British forces and marked the biggest victory to date for the revolutionaries. The battlefield is considered among the top four "most threatened" historic battlefields in the nation by the government, in large part because of the proposed rail line and the negative impact it would have on the site.

So far, the Monmouth County freeholders have been doggedly determined to build the line through theMonmouth Battlefield, and have pretty well ignored every argument against it. They blew off the report from the Battlefield Protection Program and plowed ahead. They've ignored complaints and concerns expressed by the public and local officials from other communities.

But even though the DEP did not say it expressly opposes the MOM route through the battlefield, the fact that it has so many concerns ought to tell the freeholders something. That something is this: For all intents and purposes, the MOM line that would take passenger trains through the battlefield is dead, and it's time to quit wasting money on it.

There are two other proposals on the table. One would run from Ocean County to Red Bank, connecting with the North Jersey Coast Line, and the other would run fromOcean County toAberdeen-Matawan, also connecting with the North Jersey Coast Line.

Either of the other options is better than cutting through theMonmouth Battlefield, because that would cause a heck of a fight and cost a boatload of additional money. And if we're ever going to get this thing built, we ought to spend our planning and studymoney on an option that has a better chance of succeeding.

It's time for the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee.