BUDGET WORKSHOP MEETING TUESDAY, JAN. 20th, 5:00pm

The first budget workshop meeting of 2009 will be held Tuesday, January 20th, at 5:00pm at Town Hall. It is at this meeting that line items will be reviewed, "wish list" items will be considered and priorities will assigned.

Unfortunately, this process generally occurs with little input from the taxpaying public. The meetings are routinely scheduled in the late afternoon to allow sufficient time for items to be discussed, and it may just simply be that it is difficult for intersted parties to attend at the scheduled time.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

The decisions that are rendered at these workshops ultimately determine what our final tax rates will be. While it remains unclear how much aid that Mullica will receive from the state, and in all likelihood that number will decrease from last year, township committee still has a great deal of control over how money is spent.

It appears that Democrat Bill Kennedy has partnered with Republicans Kathy Chasey and Janet Forman in creating a three-vote block on how they will spend taxpayer money. This puts them in a veto-proof position to support each other's pet projects on the taxpayer dime, such as a proposed Veteran's Park for an area outside of Town Hall that Kennedy originally indicated would be funded entirely with donations. He has now seen fit to try to force this expense on the taxpayers despite committee discussion that leaned more toward raising the money from interested donors. While Keep Mullica Green's Bernie Graebener (a veteran himself) and Michael St. Amour enthusiastically support providing a tribute to our veterans, we feel that both the proposed location and taxpayer funding are wrong for Mullica.

The Tuesday meeting will also bring to light whether committeepersons Kennedy, Chasey and Forman conspired to dole out an 89% raise to the newly appointed public defender. If the pay package for the public defender is in fact $3,600 as had been questioned by Michael St. Amour at the 1/13/09 committee meeting (a contention that was denied by both Bill Kennedy and Kathy Chasey), it would appear that Chasey and Kennedy knowingly deceived the public at that meeting. Kennedy has denied knowledge of the secret agreement, but his vote at Tuesday's meeting will tell the tale. Are you on the taxpayer's side, Bill, or just along for the ride with Chasey and Forman? Keep Mullica Green will follow up with the results.