Still Enough For Everybody?

In an unusual moment of candor typically reserved for backroom whispers or private email servers our political boss in Union County reassured his electorate after a bit of an internal kerfuffle with the words:

“As my mayor in Linden says, there’s enough for everybody. Right, Mayor?” Scutari said. “And I pledge to work with him and my members of my city council in Linden — congratulations, mayor — and work with everyone here regardless of where we were before we came in here today.”

Which is what an audience dependent on government jobs and no-bid contracts wants to hear. But is there still really enough?

Advertisements

UC Dem Primary Results

When pot-boy Nick Scutari decided to jump the M/F/M/F line of succession to chair of the Union County Democratic Committee he got some pushback and, yesterday, some payback.

Internet coverage of the results with selected excerpts:

UCCF 5/23/19: Freeholders Pay for Sexual Harassment

2019-463: A resolution authorizing Settlement of pending litigation in the matter entitled Susan Pearl & Cynthia Pisano v. UC, ct al, Docket No. MID-L-5833-18, in the total amount not to exceed $395,000 (County Contribution not to exceed is S230,000, remainder from Chubb Insurance Co.)

This is how the litigation was explained by County Counsel Robert Barry:
.

.
And this is how TapintoClark explained it:

Union County Freeholder Debate 5/29/19

There was a gathering in Plainfield yesterday to which the League of Women Voters (LWV)  invited nine Democrat freeholder candidates in the June 4 primary in anticipation of a debate. According to an eye witness (Bruce Paterson) here is what took place.

Scutari Warriors

According to a Letter to the Editor of TAPintoClark:

We, the undersigned, are members of the Clark Democratic Committee. We are part of the legions of committee members throughout Union County who Union County Democratic Chairman Nick Scutari has thrown off the regular Democratic Organization line this year for our re-election.

The reason for this action is simple: we voted for someone else at the last election for Union County Chairman who we believed would be better for the party. For people unfamiliar with this process, all votes were signed – and Nick Scutari personally examined and took note of each one. We know that Chairman Scutari is concerned about maintaining his position, but there’s more. Clark, along with several other towns in Union County, may play a pivotal role in his re-election to State Senate next year, and it is up to the Committee Chairs to nominate him.

Chairman Scutari may be concerned with his level of support.

So instead of working to win the support of committee people who have worked hard for their party – in some cases for 30 years or more —he chose to use his position to replace them with new names. While a few hand-picked candidates may be genuinely interested in serving their community, most of these candidates come from the ranks of County employees, their families, and others whose fate County Chairman Scutari controls. These employees and/or family members who are candidates may feel that they have no choice but to run to protect their employment.

We also have this facebook post:

I am one of the 17 committee members in Cranford who were secretly taken off the line (ballot) by John Salerno, the municipal chair but more importantly, a county employee, because I and the 17 others didn’t vote for Nick Scutari last year. John Salerno knew who didn’t vote for Nick Scutari because they had open ballots…

All the towns in Union County that have had Committee members secretly removed from the line were the towns that didn’t overwhelmingly vote for Nick Scutari for county chair last year. Those towns include Fanwood, Clark, Cranford, Westfield and Linden.

…..

I didn’t even know about Scutari’s bullying and bribing and filling committee seats with his employees. I didn’t even know that the people that had to vote for Scutari had the threat of losing their livelihoods hanging over their heads.

Based on past blogs regarding the makeup of the candidates for Committee seats in next week’s democrat election, of the 837 candidates on the Real Democrats of Union County line there 293 who either have a government job or whose spouse has a government job. Of those 114 are for Union County. Here they are:

No Debating Corrupt System

It is billed as a debate tomorrow among Democrat freeholder candidates in the primary next week but the rules make it a ‘must-miss’ for anyone but the plants and political operatives who will be stuffing the question box. Among their rules:

• The forum will be video recorded and the media are invited to attend. Only credentialed media are allowed to record the event.
• Each candidate will have 2 minutes for opening remarks to introduce themselves. The moderator will then ask a question from the audience. So that we can address as many questions as possible in the time available, each candidate will have 1 minute to answer each question. If time permits, candidates will also have 2 minutes for a closing statement.
• All questions are screened by a neutral committee to ensure that questions are applicable to all candidates, are not personal in nature, and are addressed to subjects relevant to this forum.

There will be a Plainfield debate immediately after and if all 9 freeholder candidates show up a best case scenario is that there will be six questions. Almost certainly nothing on the theft of Open Space tax money or the Solar Panel fiasco but, if Armstead can sneak it in, maybe something on this.

UCDEM (12): Final

When Democrats in Union County get together to choose who will be on a ballot the general sentiment might run towards:
.

.
Which is why potential candidates running on a platform of cutting taxes and spending have a hard time getting a hearing since they are trying to convince Committee members who may feel personally threatened. In Union County that comes to 36% of the candidates in the next election for Committee seats who are on the Regular Democrat line and have a government job or pension or are married to someone with a government job.