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 Posted: Sun, Apr 10 2011, 11:43 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| What does the citing of the Declaration of Independence bill have to do with Cranbury’s interests? That’s a general social issue. Either you are for that concept or against it but it doesn’t particularly impact Cranbury specifically versus the whole state. I am sure there are some in Cranbury who probably thought it was a good idea and some who didn’t. Whereas her votes to support township and school consolidation didn’t serve anyone in Cranbury, nor did her continuous support of COAH serve anyone in her whole district. They thing I found the most disheartening about her too is how obvious she was with voting for things she admitted she didn’t believe it. I’ll give her credit for frequently showing up at Cranbury events and public meetings; she is a hard worker, unlike DeAngelo who doesn’t even bother since his constituency is the Union that pays his full-time wages and underwrote his campaigns. But whenever she was asked point blank about one of these bills that didn’t serve Cranbury’s interests she would basically say she’s “uncomfortable” with the bill and didn’t agree with it, but would always hedge when asked if she would vote for it saying things like, “we’ll its better than the alternative” or “I think I need to support it while I work toward something better” etc. |
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| Posted: Sun, Apr 10 2011, 12:24 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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I guess my point is Greenstein is not as bad as you think and the alternatives have not been as good as you think. I thought Baroni was pretty good. What did his party do for him? Dumped him in the political purgatory of the port authority, where he will never be heard from again.
COAH has been very bad for Cranbury. As Christie is finding out, there may be no legislative remedy. I believe the only way out of the COAH and school funding messes is a constitutional convention. Both parties are apparently afraid to do this.
The current administration has done nothing but take money from Cranbury.
You are missing the bigger picture. Linda Greenstein has not done that much to destroy Cranbury, nor did her predecessers, Bill Baroni and Pete Inverso do much to help Cranbury. They were all nice people of both parties who seemed to work very hard, but the problem is above their paygrade. The courts have now ruled for thirty years that the NJ constitution requires abbot and COAH funding. The courts have not changed. Change the NJ constitution.
If you think getting rid of Linda Greenstein will somehow help Cranbury, you are delusional.
This is not an endorsement of Greenstein, I want to hear Wayne. But your repeated diatribe against her is silly. Realize Linda is not the problem and replacing her will not fix the problem. The only way to address COAH and Abbot is constitutionally.
The only way Wayne could do a better job on those two issues is to advocate a Constitutional Convention. Are you listening Wayne? |
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| Posted: Sun, Apr 10 2011, 11:04 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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It's a statement of facts, not a rant. And to your point, Baroni actually did vote in favor of Cranbury's interests contrary to Greenstein in the examples mentioned. He consistently took our position. No one said anything about how replacing Greenstein would be some magic bullet that would make Trenton be fair to Cranbury and not constantly try and work against us. But that's not the point. If she's consistently voting against our interests why would anyone living here rationally vote for her?
Are you seriously suggesting that the bar for supporting her need only be that there is no proof that someone different will solve all our problems with the state? So the logic is we know she does nothing for us but since someone else may not be any better let's keep voting for her? That logic may make sense if there were examples where she is helping us and we have something to lose. But if she's voting against us every time in recent years I don't see why we wouldn't at least try someone else. It was a real shame we lost Baroni. He showed up to every meeting just like Greenstein but actually voted for us. |
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| Posted: Sun, Apr 10 2011, 11:26 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | It's a statement of facts, not a rant. And to your point, Baroni actually did vote in favor of Cranbury's interests contrary to Greenstein in the examples mentioned. He consistently took our position. No one said anything about how replacing Greenstein would be some magic bullet that would make Trenton be fair to Cranbury and not constantly try and work against us. But that's not the point. If she's consistently voting against our interests why would anyone living here rationally vote for her?
Are you seriously suggesting that the bar for supporting her need only be that there is no proof that someone different will solve all our problems with the state? So the logic is we know she does nothing for us but since someone else may not be any better let's keep voting for her? That logic may make sense if there were examples where she is helping us and we have something to lose. But if she's voting against us every time in recent years I don't see why we wouldn't at least try someone else. It was a real shame we lost Baroni. He showed up to every meeting just like Greenstein but actually voted for us. |
Baroni took a $300000 patronage job from Christie while Greenstein continues to work for $50000 to represent Cranbury.
The "us" you sprout is merely your projection of your views of what Cranbury and NJ should be: clearly most voters don't agree with you. |
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| Posted: Sun, Apr 10 2011, 11:29 pm EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Take a deep breath, then read it again. The point is had Baronis position been passed would it have changed anthing? Doubtful, the problem is at this point is not legislative, it needs a constitutional solution. If you don't understand this there is no point continuing the discussion. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 1:04 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | It's a statement of facts, not a rant. And to your point, Baroni actually did vote in favor of Cranbury's interests contrary to Greenstein in the examples mentioned. He consistently took our position. No one said anything about how replacing Greenstein would be some magic bullet that would make Trenton be fair to Cranbury and not constantly try and work against us. But that's not the point. If she's consistently voting against our interests why would anyone living here rationally vote for her?
Are you seriously suggesting that the bar for supporting her need only be that there is no proof that someone different will solve all our problems with the state? So the logic is we know she does nothing for us but since someone else may not be any better let's keep voting for her? That logic may make sense if there were examples where she is helping us and we have something to lose. But if she's voting against us every time in recent years I don't see why we wouldn't at least try someone else. It was a real shame we lost Baroni. He showed up to every meeting just like Greenstein but actually voted for us. |
The "us" you sprout is merely your projection of your views of what Cranbury and NJ should be: clearly most voters don't agree with you. |
Oh come on, at least try to make a real argument. You don't really believe most votersmake an informed decision who they vote for. If that were the case why do incumbents win in this state over 98% of the time despite voter satisfaction percentages for the state senate and legislature being in the teens? |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 1:13 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Take a deep breath, then read it again. The point is had Baronis position been passed would it have changed anthing? Doubtful, the problem is at this point is not legislative, it needs a constitutional solution. If you don't understand this there is no point continuing the discussion. |
Understood it the first time. If you read my reply I simply disagreed that supporting someone who consistently votes against the Township's interests because not having done so may not have changed the outcome. The occasional strategic vote may be logical if there is a pay-off where that party loyalty helps your constituents. But when all it does is help your promotion within the party we can at least aspire to better. I would rather take a chance on unknown candidates than incumbents who have proven to only vote out of self-interest.
You keep referencing the constitutional solution which is a response to one specific issue, COAH, yet that is hardly the only issue on which Greenstein's votes have been against our Township’s interests. Township and School consolidation are other recent examples. Do you support forcing us to merge with larger Township’s? Because Greenstein does based on her votes.
I haven’t seen one response yet where anyone actually justifies or defends Greenstein’s voting record. So is the conclusion that Greenstein is okay because she couldn’t do any good anyway so its fine that she doesn’t try? |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 9:18 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 9:58 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
Late 2006 or early 2007. It was a bill that allowed the establishment of a special superintendent vested with the authority to authorize studies of small school district consolidations. The bill was a typical complicated mess that in theory required the local Township’s to vote on consolidation, but knowing almost no Township would willingly do this had various leverages the superintendent could pull such as withholding all state funding, messing with staffing and any other shared arrangements, such as our tuition agreement with Princeton. So effective if the powers that be really wanted to make it happen they could make the alternatives impalpable. They did call for a study of Cranbury specifically and there was a public meeting at the school with the person appointed to lead the study. I don't think they ever got around to publishing the study and I assume the initiative is tabled, but since the law wasn't repealed presumably it could always be resurrected again.
Greenstein voted in favor of it, even after being questioned about it at a Cranbury public meeting and implying she didn’t agree with it. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 10:22 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | It's a statement of facts, not a rant. And to your point, Baroni actually did vote in favor of Cranbury's interests contrary to Greenstein in the examples mentioned. He consistently took our position. No one said anything about how replacing Greenstein would be some magic bullet that would make Trenton be fair to Cranbury and not constantly try and work against us. But that's not the point. If she's consistently voting against our interests why would anyone living here rationally vote for her?
Are you seriously suggesting that the bar for supporting her need only be that there is no proof that someone different will solve all our problems with the state? So the logic is we know she does nothing for us but since someone else may not be any better let's keep voting for her? That logic may make sense if there were examples where she is helping us and we have something to lose. But if she's voting against us every time in recent years I don't see why we wouldn't at least try someone else. It was a real shame we lost Baroni. He showed up to every meeting just like Greenstein but actually voted for us. |
The "us" you sprout is merely your projection of your views of what Cranbury and NJ should be: clearly most voters don't agree with you. |
Oh come on, at least try to make a real argument. You don't really believe most votersmake an informed decision who they vote for. If that were the case why do incumbents win in this state over 98% of the time despite voter satisfaction percentages for the state senate and legislature being in the teens? |
please - do better than that. Greenstein beat Goodwin by 8%. It was actually a referendum on Christie and his anti-education policies.
Your projection of your views onto all of "us" is troubling |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 10:30 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | It's a statement of facts, not a rant. And to your point, Baroni actually did vote in favor of Cranbury's interests contrary to Greenstein in the examples mentioned. He consistently took our position. No one said anything about how replacing Greenstein would be some magic bullet that would make Trenton be fair to Cranbury and not constantly try and work against us. But that's not the point. If she's consistently voting against our interests why would anyone living here rationally vote for her?
Are you seriously suggesting that the bar for supporting her need only be that there is no proof that someone different will solve all our problems with the state? So the logic is we know she does nothing for us but since someone else may not be any better let's keep voting for her? That logic may make sense if there were examples where she is helping us and we have something to lose. But if she's voting against us every time in recent years I don't see why we wouldn't at least try someone else. It was a real shame we lost Baroni. He showed up to every meeting just like Greenstein but actually voted for us. |
The "us" you sprout is merely your projection of your views of what Cranbury and NJ should be: clearly most voters don't agree with you. |
Oh come on, at least try to make a real argument. You don't really believe most votersmake an informed decision who they vote for. If that were the case why do incumbents win in this state over 98% of the time despite voter satisfaction percentages for the state senate and legislature being in the teens? |
please - do better than that. Greenstein beat Goodwin by 8%. It was actually a referendum on Christie and his anti-education policies.
Your projection of your views onto all of "us" is troubling |
Wow, you really believe that? You really believe Greenstein won as a referendum against Christie? LOL, that is such a ridiculous statement. Christie is more popular than ever. There has been no voter referendum against him, yet. It was never even a competitive race. Everyone knew Greenstein was going to run and win from the day Baroni's appointment to the Port Authority was announced. If anything, the only surprise was that Goodwin got as many votes as he did. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 10:43 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Not to mention this is a D-leaning district and Goodwin had a relatively weak campaign against someone with name recognition. It is well estasblished that an uninformed voter will flip the level for a familiar name over an unfamiliar name in the majority of instances. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 11:18 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
Late 2006 or early 2007. It was a bill that allowed the establishment of a special superintendent vested with the authority to authorize studies of small school district consolidations. The bill was a typical complicated mess that in theory required the local Township’s to vote on consolidation, but knowing almost no Township would willingly do this had various leverages the superintendent could pull such as withholding all state funding, messing with staffing and any other shared arrangements, such as our tuition agreement with Princeton. So effective if the powers that be really wanted to make it happen they could make the alternatives impalpable. They did call for a study of Cranbury specifically and there was a public meeting at the school with the person appointed to lead the study. I don't think they ever got around to publishing the study and I assume the initiative is tabled, but since the law wasn't repealed presumably it could always be resurrected again.
Greenstein voted in favor of it, even after being questioned about it at a Cranbury public meeting and implying she didn’t agree with it. |
That was not a bill for school consolidation. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 11:25 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
Late 2006 or early 2007. It was a bill that allowed the establishment of a special superintendent vested with the authority to authorize studies of small school district consolidations. The bill was a typical complicated mess that in theory required the local Township’s to vote on consolidation, but knowing almost no Township would willingly do this had various leverages the superintendent could pull such as withholding all state funding, messing with staffing and any other shared arrangements, such as our tuition agreement with Princeton. So effective if the powers that be really wanted to make it happen they could make the alternatives impalpable. They did call for a study of Cranbury specifically and there was a public meeting at the school with the person appointed to lead the study. I don't think they ever got around to publishing the study and I assume the initiative is tabled, but since the law wasn't repealed presumably it could always be resurrected again.
Greenstein voted in favor of it, even after being questioned about it at a Cranbury public meeting and implying she didn’t agree with it. |
I do not care why you dislike Greenstein. But to attribute school consolidation to this bill is just false. When you make claims like "greenstein is for school consolidation" you give the impression that if we got rid of legislators like Greenstein, the school consolidation problem would go away. It won't. It was a problem going back to Whitman. By the way at that time wasn't Barbra Wright our assembly person. She was originally from Cranbury, I wondered how she voted on consolidation issues.
I think your main misunderstanding comes from the nature of New Jersey government. The department of Ed answers to the Governor. The Gov can push consolidation without ever turning to the legislature. For instance if instead of Dump Greenstein she is for consolidation you would have said, Dump Corzine or Dump Christie Whitman they are for consolidation you would have been correct. |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 11:34 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
Late 2006 or early 2007. It was a bill that allowed the establishment of a special superintendent vested with the authority to authorize studies of small school district consolidations. The bill was a typical complicated mess that in theory required the local Township’s to vote on consolidation, but knowing almost no Township would willingly do this had various leverages the superintendent could pull such as withholding all state funding, messing with staffing and any other shared arrangements, such as our tuition agreement with Princeton. So effective if the powers that be really wanted to make it happen they could make the alternatives impalpable. They did call for a study of Cranbury specifically and there was a public meeting at the school with the person appointed to lead the study. I don't think they ever got around to publishing the study and I assume the initiative is tabled, but since the law wasn't repealed presumably it could always be resurrected again.
Greenstein voted in favor of it, even after being questioned about it at a Cranbury public meeting and implying she didn’t agree with it. |
That was not a bill for school consolidation. |
Why try to reinvent history? Of course it was. It was widely discussed as exactly that, Greenstein fielded questions about it at a local meeting, they held a special meeting to discuss its impact on Cranbury and you could even go back and search this site at the time and find discussion about it. The Cranbury Press covered the meeting. How many points of reference do you need to deny to try and make a case that the bill had nothing to do with trying to promote school district consolidation? |
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 11 2011, 11:50 am EDT Post subject: Re: Wittman? |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | When did Greenstein vote for school consolidation? |
Late 2006 or early 2007. It was a bill that allowed the establishment of a special superintendent vested with the authority to authorize studies of small school district consolidations. The bill was a typical complicated mess that in theory required the local Township’s to vote on consolidation, but knowing almost no Township would willingly do this had various leverages the superintendent could pull such as withholding all state funding, messing with staffing and any other shared arrangements, such as our tuition agreement with Princeton. So effective if the powers that be really wanted to make it happen they could make the alternatives impalpable. They did call for a study of Cranbury specifically and there was a public meeting at the school with the person appointed to lead the study. I don't think they ever got around to publishing the study and I assume the initiative is tabled, but since the law wasn't repealed presumably it could always be resurrected again.
Greenstein voted in favor of it, even after being questioned about it at a Cranbury public meeting and implying she didn’t agree with it. |
I do not care why you dislike Greenstein. But to attribute school consolidation to this bill is just false. When you make claims like "greenstein is for school consolidation" you give the impression that if we got rid of legislators like Greenstein, the school consolidation problem would go away. It won't. It was a problem going back to Whitman. By the way at that time wasn't Barbra Wright our assembly person. She was originally from Cranbury, I wondered how she voted on consolidation issues.
I think your main misunderstanding comes from the nature of New Jersey government. The department of Ed answers to the Governor. The Gov can push consolidation without ever turning to the legislature. For instance if instead of Dump Greenstein she is for consolidation you would have said, Dump Corzine or Dump Christie Whitman they are for consolidation you would have been correct. |
There is no misunderstanding, just a difference of opinion. Your defense of Greenstein seems to consistently be based not on support for what she has done for Cranbury but the notion that it doesn't matter if she has voted against our interests consistently because it wouldn't have made a difference. I simply disagree with you that this is a good basis on which to support her. You feel the need to classify disagreement as misunderstanding because I suppose you can't fathom why someone wouldn't share your opinion if they understood the facts.
And Corzine was dumped in case you hadn’t noticed. I for one voted for him the first time and specifically voted against him the second time because of his support of consolidation. But Christie is no better of this issue and has already appropriated all of Corzine’s talking points about it as if they were his own.
It is completely fair to say that Greenstein supports school consolidation. Are you now suggesting that she doesn’t have to be held to her voting record either? Wow, your standards for our government representation are very low. Our representatives apparently don’t have to do anything to help us as long as you perceive that their efforts wouldn’t have made the difference and now don’t have to be held accountable for their own legislative votes.
There is nothing I have written that “give the impression that if we got rid of legislators like Greenstein, the school consolidation problem would go away.” That is entirely your own interpretation and I keep trying to dispel it by saying that my standard for supporting someone is not merely that they couldn’t have done any good anyway so I don’t have a problem with them voting against the Township’s interests or its constituents. That seems to be our disconnect. You support her not with positive affirmations of her accomplishments but merely negative justifications that she didn’t do any harm by voting against us. I chose a different standard.
I don’t dislike Greenstein personally. I don’t know her personally, only as a political representative of our district. I actually respect her as a hard worker who makes the effort to show up at our events and meetings unlike her former Assembly counterpart. What I dislike in her official capacity is her consistent lack of support for the interests of Cranbury or most of the other Township’s in her district. Some people may choose to support her simply because of her political party or their own political aspirations or because they like the larger social or fiscal values of the party. That is their right. My point was most people don’t even go to that level of analysis. They vote whoever’s name is listed next to their registered party and they rarely change parties. I was hoping someone could give specific support for how Greenstein has helped Cranbury recently but apparently not. |
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