To the Editor:
I have been watching what has been going on in the city for a while now. I read the newspaper. I have been watching the City Council meetings and the BLRA meetings, as well as the MUA meetings. These I find to be very significant of what is going on, and by watching these meetings and reading the newspaper, this will help me to understand what is really going on.
I remember seeing the mayor come and speak before the City Council in December, asking them to please be patient, and that his office was going to make changes in all departments. The only changes I have seen in any department were the firings of two men from the law department. If you were going to fire someone from the law department, my choice (and many of the residents) would have been your buddy, Chris Patella. He was so disrespectful to everyone. He should have been fired. I guess he gets rewarded with the BLRA chief because he is a personal friend. How many other jobs have been rewarded since Mark Smith has been mayor? I can only imagine!
Can you please tell me when Mr. Gallo is in the MUA office? When you call there, he is never available. Does he need to be in the mayor’s office all the time? Isn’t the mayor capable of making his own decisions or not? What worries me is that Mr. Gallo isn’t doing the job he is getting paid for. So who is running the show in the MUA? Who is running the show in Bayonne?
Several council meetings ago, Mr. LaPelusa suggested he and his colleagues vote to remove titles of police and fire directors. At that meeting, the mayor came out again, asking the council not to vote on this as to allow his office to be able to change the makeup of all different departments and so on. Why? If you are the mayor of the city and you are no longer police director, why not resign? I guess we are keeping our options open. Also, we haven’t had a fire director in over a year. I don’t see why we didn’t do away with these titles and positions to remove that money from the budget, saving a good chunk of money. I guess it is all about greed.
Then I read that the mayor’s office claimed in two weeks there was going to be a shake up in City Hall. You guys are all full of you know what!
The last council meeting was a disgraceful display of dirty politics at its best by the mayor when he took to the mic. Instead of discussing the issue at hand with the council in private, he went public and let everyone know what he and Mr. Gallo think about Mr. Cresci before there has been a formal investigation. I don’t want to hear that you were thinking of the residents of Bayonne. We know you weren’t. If that was the case, you would stand up to the county and not allow your “cronies” in the county to raise our taxes.
Who cares about us, the residents?
ELIZABETH WEINGARD