Author	Message
publius	Posted: Tue, Dec 15 2009, 12:54 am EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township But, is the state forcing Cranbury to consolidate? As far as I know, we get little in the way of money from them, so they can't tell us what to do! can they? Anyway, Corzine is out the door, maybe all of this consolidation crap is history. isn't it? What has happened to this country???
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 9:43 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now? Let’s think now – unions bring decent wages to New Jersey families, health care for their families, good retirement and security which makes New Jersey families thrive. Bad management is bad management. Bloated private or public companies or governments need reform. Some governments were very efficient but immoral and corrupt like Hitler’s Germany. Many religious organizations propose great moral purpose but create wickedness (Catholic abortion policy and the their child abusing priests and bishops) Stop listening to Rush and Palin and start thinking for yourself Let me get this straight. You believe that forcing a historic township like Cranbury, that has carefully managed growth for over 300 years, to merge into a larger, less well-managed township like Monroe that would reduce the qualities of the school and cost taxpayers for for less, helps "New Jersey thrive"? So as long as unions jobs have are being created, it doesn't matter what is destroyed or whether it helps a vast majority of the New Jersey population. Union or death, huh?
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 9:37 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now? Let’s think now – unions bring decent wages to New Jersey families, health care for their families, good retirement and security which makes New Jersey families thrive. Bad management is bad management. Bloated private or public companies or governments need reform. Some governments were very efficient but immoral and corrupt like Hitler’s Germany. Many religious organizations propose great moral purpose but create wickedness (Catholic abortion policy and the their child abusing priests and bishops) Stop listening to Rush and Palin and start thinking for yourself First of all, your twisting the point to suit your personal agenda. This post was about whether it makes sense to force smaller towns and schools to merge into larger ones. The original poster pointed out that the facts show that larger towns and schools are less cost effective. One reason is larger ones have more layers of management. It’s not the only reason and no one mentioned anything about unions being bad until you brought it up. Your previous post implied that it was good to add layers of management to bring more union jobs and to close the “wealth gap.” Now instead of defending that idea, you throw out wildly off topic statements about bad management elsewhere then sprinkle Nazi Germany and some anti-Catholicism. Have a little ADHD, do you? But either way you’re contradicting yourself because no one said anything about unions being bad, so if you’re admitted that extra management layers aren’t helpful than you’re making the original posters point and you would agree that merger and consolidation doesn’t make sense. You can’t have it both ways – do you believe its okay to make work up to create unions jobs that didn’t need to exist or do you believe we should be as efficient as possible? Second, are you honestly suggesting that anyone who doesn’t agree with unions is a fan of Rush or Palin? Wow, are you self-deluded. Actually, a very large percentage of both parties don’t agree with unionization. In fact, relatively few peope do who are either not members of a union or have family members who are. So union support rests largely in the membership of the unions themselves. Which is not to say they are good or bad, just that the idea that only reactionaries (a “radical” by definition is someone who is extremely left-oriented in politics – the proper term for extreme right-wingers is reactionary) would be against them is completely off-base. The truth, like most of reality, is that unions are neither good or bad. They can be positive or negative depending on how they operate and who is operating them. Historically they have served a noble in history. That said, only an indoctrinated union member would preach that in their current form they are entirely positive. It’s fine to lobby for great wages and benefits. It doesn’t help society though when unions are allowed to exert pressure on people who don’t want to be members to join. It doesn’t help when they make it hard to promote competence and weed out incompetence. It doesn’t help when they believe they should be able to push for benefits or compensation not consistent with the general marketplace. Or when they exert political pressure to create laws for the explicit purpose of creating union work, even if the work didn’t need to exist, as they have done, for example, in manipulating New Jersey’s government and courts to make it the most developer-friendly state in the nation and, statistically, the most over developed. That does not make New Jersey “thrive” – stop drinking the Koo-Aid, do your own research and make your own reasoned decisions based on actual facts. Signed, a Democrat who can’t stand Rush or Palin…
Homer	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 9:32 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now? Let’s think now – unions bring decent wages to New Jersey families, health care for their families, good retirement and security which makes New Jersey families thrive. Bad management is bad management. Bloated private or public companies or governments need reform. Some governments were very efficient but immoral and corrupt like Hitler’s Germany. Many religious organizations propose great moral purpose but create wickedness (Catholic abortion policy and the their child abusing priests and bishops) Stop listening to Rush and Palin and start thinking for yourself Put me in coach! Someone's been in left field too long.
proud catholic	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 8:57 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now? Let’s think now – unions bring decent wages to New Jersey families, health care for their families, good retirement and security which makes New Jersey families thrive. Bad management is bad management. Bloated private or public companies or governments need reform. Some governments were very efficient but immoral and corrupt like Hitler’s Germany. Many religious organizations propose great moral purpose but create wickedness (Catholic abortion policy and the their child abusing priests and bishops) Stop listening to Rush and Palin and start thinking for yourself Wow, as a Catholic Democrat with a father in law in a union let me tell you your views are as radical and out there as Rush and Beck are, but clearly you won't see that because they are your views. You're telling me all Catholics are evil!! The vast majority of priests and nuns do good work along with the many, many, many Catholic charities. The Catholic church along with Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal and others do a lot of work in the community and elsewhere in the world. Look at Skeet's food pantry here in Cranbury. Yes, like any place there are bad apples, but to hold the view as you do that the whole religion is evil is just insulting. Your views are beyond radical. I actually feel sorry for you if these are true views and not just a bad joke. Then you go on about the need for bigger government while saying governments need reform. So you want to reform government by making it bigger and taking away towns like Cranbury? How about realigning government so that we have smaller government staffing with money going to the causes. My father in law is hurting because of his union and he will be the first to tell you. When he joined in his 20's it was worth it the union was less concerned about their money and more concerned about their members. Now, he is off for an entire month because the union will not allow lay offs, the company is hurting so he has to go a month without pay because the union wants to keep the younger employees who just joined by union demand so that the union can keep collecting their dues.
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 8:38 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Homer wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now? Let’s think now – unions bring decent wages to New Jersey families, health care for their families, good retirement and security which makes New Jersey families thrive. Bad management is bad management. Bloated private or public companies or governments need reform. Some governments were very efficient but immoral and corrupt like Hitler’s Germany. Many religious organizations propose great moral purpose but create wickedness (Catholic abortion policy and the their child abusing priests and bishops) Stop listening to Rush and Palin and start thinking for yourself
Homer	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 5:15 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Who is demonizing workers? Why can't you support workers without supporting the continued expansion of a bloated government system that crushes opportunity and entrepreneurialism under mountains of tax and regulatory burdens? Here's a suggestion to help you understand what I'm talking about... Go find your "support the troops, not the war" bumper sticker (I know you have one) and change it to "support the workers, not the waste". Do you feel better now?
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 5:11 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Is anyone actually writing the Cranbury Press publishers about this? It's all fine and good to vent here and it is a serious issue. But I would think letters to the publisher -- not the editors but the publisher -- expressing our concerns would at least have the potential go a lot further. Whenever there is an issue that affects the schools, parents rally overnight like there is no tomorrow. Can we get even a fraction of that around this issue? Again, no one argues with the Press' ability to publish editorials. What we object to is taking an official position, without any context specific to why it is good for Cranbury specifically, on a state issue that would fundamentally affect Cranbury.
Peter	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 2:41 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township I agree and my intention was not to say newsletter and a paper are the same. However, the newsletter does let one know what is happening, when clean up days are, what projects are occurring etc... The email alerts are great and thanks again for posting them for others. The problem is that many new residents don't know about this service or this site. Where as when the newsletter was mailed it was done to all residents new and old. That's why I like the opt out method. In the end we do need the Cranbury Press to consider their audience as 3- Cranbury, Spotswood and Jamesburg would be gone under the consolidation efforts they support.
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 2:33 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township It's just not realistic to ask the township to provide you with the info you need (do we need a town news reporter?), and the Cranbury Press is incapable of doing that in its current state. Win did post a few news articles related to COAH here. I think this is a good approach: if you find something that might be of interest to our town, post it here for others to read.
BenFranklin	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 2:20 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Don't worry, Ole Ben takes no offense. However, he does object to the notion that a quarterly newsletter published by the township is a suitable alternative to a viable independent press outlet. The town newsletter is valuable for the information it presents, but it does not raise resident awareness of the larger issues. And while some residents may manifest belief that there's not much news in Cranbury, I don't buy into that view. After all, just about every week there is a meeting, whether in our town or in Trenton, that stands to potentially affect my taxes, the quality of my schools, my property values, my safety, the composition of my neighborhood, etc. In other words, the hyper-local news that we're missing is way more important than national-level news because it directly affects us. If there were really "not much" news in Cranbury, it should be really easy to cover it. And yet nobody does.
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 2:03 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township The town email notification is much better than the town newsletter in delivering news and events to the residents. You can register it here: http://cranburytownship.org/register.html For a new resident, the town newsletter does help. There is just not much news to report in this town. In a few occasions, I found very good info here by reading the postings from people who attended TC meetings.
peter	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 1:41 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Apologies to the poster Ben Franklin, I re-read my post and realized it could be assumed that I was posting as him. I just wanted to add one point onto to what Ol'Ben said.
Peter	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 1:21 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township To add one further point, I sincerely doubt the majority of residents are on this message board. Let's assume 10% of our town is here. In addition, the Cranbury Twp newsletter is now electronic only meaning one has to sign up for it or know to go to Town Hall. New residents would not even know we have a Town Newsletter. This all means that without a thriving local paper such as the Cranbury Press we will have a vast majority of residents unaware of what is occurring locally. I would hope that the town next year consider mailing out the newsletter and asking residents to opt for electronic mailing. This is the normal course for towns and while I understand there is an expense, we should value communication with the tax payers as a priority.
BenFranklin	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 12:45 pm EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township To me, this is a really important topic for this town. A traditional and vitally important role of a local newspaper has been to provide a check against local government, to make sure those voted into office (or paid through the town's coffers) hold up their end of the bargain. I would argue that Cranbury Press has failed at this mission for some time now, as others on this board have noted so enthusiastically. The larger issue, really, is that Cranbury is simply too small to get coverage from the Trenton Times or the Newark Star-Ledger -- both of which are also struggling financially, I might add. This essentially means that today there is ZERO neutral, unbiased and meaningful press coverage of Cranbury. (Or even, on top of that, most of the state governmental chain that affects Cranbury.) Sure, we all rely a bit on this bulletin board to get a general sense of what's going on in and around our town, but how accurate is what's posted here? Do the views on here represent a cross-section of opinion? Does anyone who posts on here have the time or energy to dig into the facts or background on stories? Now that Jay Taylor has been elected, will anyone bother to report what "really" happened at the last Township Committee? If, as Brandeis said, sunshine is the best disinfectant, then a town like Cranbury without a functional press corp could become a pretty dark place. Or maybe Cranbury Sauce is more important than it seems
Guest	Posted: Mon, Dec 14 2009, 11:13 am EST    Post subject: Re: Cranbury Press Again Advocates Destruction of Cranbury Township Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Homer wrote: Consolidation means more government union jobs. Yeah, baby! Pick me! Pick me! Imagine that - good paying jobs with health benefits, job security, workers with some self respect – doing something meaningful like teaching our kids, taking care of our disabled folks, cleaning our streets, processing our property taxes – So make sure you demonize the workers (whether they work for local government or private companies) and sit silently by as the gap between the wealthy and the poor gets larger. Trickle down as Mulligan and the tea baggers would explain it Why do you have to bash a person who ran for office, who was not elected and yet continues to try and be active and help us? I wish Dan had been elected. As it stands, I think Jay and Dave will serve us well, but there is no point hiding behind a "Guest" and bashing someone when if you feel he's a threat you could easily place a name on your post and run for TC or seek to be involved in other areas. I can't believe you're even a Cranbury resident. IMO, no real resident in this town feels that we should be forcefully consolidated. Why? Because the other town will likely be in a worse financial position, we'd lose valuable employees in our town where there are duplicate positions, while increasing other jobs, we'd lose our school, we'd lose our property values, we'd lose our culture, and we'd likely see our tax revenues going to support the other town or if it is county going to support the other schools like New Brunswick our county. West Windsor would see more of their tax money flow to Trenton. I have news for you as well. WE ARE ALL WORKERS. We are not demonizing individuals, but the fact that the larger or government is the less accountability exists. It's why we get in a position where waste becomes evident. You can't deny there is waste in the state and federal government regardless of the party that is in power. You can’t make this stuff up!!! Anyone who calls out Mulligan because he is a tea bagger or who defends unions is a “non resident”. Because? Oh because we are all tea baggers or tea bagger defenders or – we are the only true patriotic American, a true Cranburian. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity No, if you read and comprehend the post you'll see that there are two separate ideas mentioned. The first part was in response to their personal attack on Dan Mulligan. The second part was me saying any real resident of Cranbury would not want to see our town done away with and consolidated with another town for the reasons I mentioned.