'Distasteful madness' at meetings must stop

As a citizen of Brick Township it gives me no pleasure to write this letter, but the recent vindictiveness and mean spiritedness of certain Republican members of the Township Council has exceeded even what I have come to expect from them. Their recent actions border on frightening.

As citizens of this great nation, we should all have the God-given right to express our ideas, thoughts, and disagreements without fear of intimidation and groundless retaliation, and every single one of us regardless of political affiliation should be outraged at the recent actions, comments, and intended future actions of these people.

I'll not waste time and space to rehash the details of the Dan Newman MUA issue. A grand jury heard the evidence and exonerated Mr. Newman, so I would suggest anyone interested in the detail simply look the case up. Although he was exonerated, these Republican members of the council continue to publicly persecute and embarrass Mr. Newman and now threaten to seek interest on bills that were never sent.

When Councilwoman Russell suggested that this was a dead issue and pleaded with the council to move ahead council President Scaturro said, but this man (Newman) just won't go away! And therein lies the frightening part of all of this.

The recent attack on Dan Newman is so much more than an attack on Dan Newman. Despite the ridiculously transparent rhetoric spouted during the Tuesday night performances, this council has chosen to stay in permanent campaign mode and combines any attempt to govern with attempts to discredit anyone they perceive to be threatening in any way. Their well tested strategy is to try to destroy the personal credibility of their adversary and to make the validity and credibility of a position a function of the person, i.e., destroy the credibility of the person and you've destroyed the credibility of the idea regardless of its truth.

Issues aren't discussed - they attack Mr. Newman but not Mr. Newman's ideas, they try to connect all current Democrats and independents involved in the Ice Palace debacle with disgraced former Mayor Joe Scarpelli; they seek revenge on Mrs. Russell by insulting her education as well as those who educated her and then publicly refer to her as "ethically challenged" despite the fact that she did nothing whatsoever even remotely unethical; they don't debate good or bad policy and government and philosophy and programs and real human needs and interests.

Instead they politicize every single council meeting and combine every position they take with an attack on someone or something. "Truth" now becomes a matter of what they can succeed in defining it as.

And to make matters worse, not only does Mrs. Scaturro virtually admit that the persecution of Mr. Newman is politically motivated - "He won't go away" - but Councilman Mathews proceeds later in the meeting to proudly and sanctimoniously proclaim that he has called for "other investigations." And by the way, this also serves to deflect attention away from other more relevant matters, such as a nearly double-digit tax increase for all of us. But oh yes, I forgot, this is a function of past administrations also, since this administration does nothing wrong.

Please stop this distasteful madness! I implore you all … disagreement is the essence of democracy. Allow people to disagree without subjecting them to such rabid and personal attacks. It would be wise if you all kept the words of Confucius in mind when he said, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

Anthony W. Lazroe

Brick