CHASEY & FORMAN-"DON'T BOTHER TO VOTE"

You read what the Press had to report about Mullica’s GEHR budget review; now the rest of the story.

Outright contempt and disrespect for Mullica’s voters was on display at Tuesday afternoon’s special budget meeting when it came time to discuss the Greater Egg Harbor Regional School District budget, which had been defeated by almost 10% of Mullica’s voters.

Because of its rejection, Mullica’s Committee had the task of making a decision on whether to reduce the budget or ignore the voters and let it pass as is. If the conclusion was to cut, it could not hurt the quality of the education being provided.

The GEHR budget would have and will now increase regional school taxes for Mullica’s taxpayers by 2.5%, the only township to see an increase in these difficult financial times.

The job of reviewing the GEHR budget to make recommendations for reasonable budget reductions and to report back to the full Committee for discussion was given to Bernard Graebener and Kathy Chasey.

However, it was obvious that the three Republicans on Committee were already intent on passing the budget before any discussion took place. This became perfectly clear when it was revealed that the resolution to accept the budget had been printed before the meeting, making a mockery of the entire procedure.

Committee member Chasey, the other half of the subcommittee assigned to review the GEHR budget, proposed nothing and, along with Forman and Kennedy, approved the budget that had been voted down by the electorate.

Graebener and St. Amour voted against accepting the original budget, believing that they had a duty to respect the will of Mullica’s voters.

This episode again shows that the Republicans on Committee do not care about the wishes of the voting public.