Goooood Morning Borough Council!!! The renovation starts now.
You can thank your newest colleague, David Zaiser, for demolishing the good-ol'-boy network in Quakertown politics. He showed that an "outsider", a self-described Mr. Everyman, could win a council seat. And he won it big, outpolling three of you, and unceremoniously evicting your president, Ray Fulmer.
The time has now come for a total overhaul of the way you treat your constituents. If you haven't yet figured it out, they're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it any more. An extreme makeover is a necessity.
Zaiser is the first candidate in anyone's memory to be elected on a platform of reform, and it is long overdue. The lesson Fulmer learned last month should not be lost on the rest of you. You have until the May, 2007, primary election to totally remodel the way you treat your residents. If you swallow Ray's absurd face-saving excuse about ballot position, you will join him in retirement.
Dennis Hallman, Jim Roberts, and Dave Wilsey: you must prove that you are no longer the lazy rule-breakers that have been common forever in council chambers. No more government in secret. No more improper no-bid contracts. No more deferred maintenance. No more grossly over-budget projects. No more improper stone deliveries to council members. No more hiding from the residents, while ignoring their needs and complaints.
If you want to prove that you are serious about reform, and intend to put the good of the citizens before your personal comfort:
End the government in secret: Post email addresses on the borough website so citizens can contact you individually. Make minutes of all meetings free, and easily available in the borough hall, without the need to go through the borough manager. Follow the Sunshine Law and clearly state the exact reason for all secret "executive sessions". This requirement is now routinely ignored.
Absolutely forbid the no-bids: To assure that Quakertown tax dollars are not still being wasted, and to remove any suspicions as to who is receiving borough contracts, require that all contracts be bid, and publish the recipients and amounts of all contracts, no matter how small. Yes, this may be inconvenient, but we still don't trust you because of your improper actions over the past years. As a result, how about spending a few extra hours on bidding rather than lose the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars you have been mis-spending on those no-bids.
Maintain the infrastructure properly : Publish a short, medium, and long-range schedule and stick to it. Create separate escrow accounts for various maintenance and replacement projects, and fund them with tax dollars each year, so they are actually paid for by the people who use them. Stop shifting tax money around in borough accounts to make your bottom line look better at the expense of necessary repairs.
Keep projects on budget : The excessive costs of the municipal pool were a disgrace - outright negligence. If a so-called "expert" misses his estimate by 33%, like architect Ted Wallover, costing taxpayers $800,000, fire him and hire someone who will get it right. And don't hand out any more jobs with no budget restrictions, like you gave to Lynn Kraft. It reeks of favoritism and impropriety.
No more freebies for council: Publicly acknowledge that it was wrong for Dan Williams to have received borough stone for his alley while not being charged for delivery, use of the borough truck and employees, and tax. Council members should be above reproach, not looking for loopholes. Until you pass a resolution banning this type of favoritism, you can not be trusted. (By the way, Williams has never provided proof of payment after promising to do so ten months ago.)
No more Woglom : Council members, particularly Fulmer, Roberts and Hallman, have bent over backward to defend Borough Manager David Woglom from the many recent charges and revelations . The fact remains, Woglom is greatly responsible for your negligence, and your embarrassment. And every one of you knows it.
The "strong manager" system is not working in Quakertown, because the system is only as good as the people running it. Under ideal conditions, the borough manager would make many of the decisions, and keep you informed of the issues and problems. But Woglom has usurped so much power, and taken away so much of what should be your responsibility, that you are totally out of the loop in your own government! And every one of you has willingly allowed him to do it .
You found that life is so much simpler when someone else does your thinking for you. No wonder Fulmer had no idea what was going on in Quakertown, or why he lost so badly. His good buddy Woglom assured him that everything was just fine.
This is the same laziness that caused your problems with ex-police chief Jim McFadden. But Mac saw what was coming, and jumped before he was pushed. Woglom is unlikely to do the same. He has worked hard for many years to make himself irreplaceable. He knows every file in the drawers - and every skeleton in the closets.
What does it say for your strong manager system when the citizens, and the press, know more about the problems and issues than you do? Woglom is supposed to be the funnel for information to council. Instead, he is a roadblock. As a result, you make bad decisions, and allow him to make them too.
Fulmer paid the price for Woglom's wrongdoing, and so will you if you continue to abrogate all responsibility to this system, and this man. We will be watching during the next seventeen months. Your futures may depend on how you rebuild yourselves during that time.
There's nowhere left to hide. Move that bus!!! If we don't see an extreme makeover, there are other Mr. Everymen waiting for your seats.
Woldow.com Exclusive Not Reviewed by The Free Press
In post-election interviews, Fulmer, and former Free Press owner and publisher Charlie Meredith, actually are blaming Ray's defeat on his ballot position. This would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
So sad that men who grew up in Quakertown hold their fellow townsfolk in such low regard. So sad that men can not gracefully accept defeat, but must instead blame others. So sad that Fulmer never even called the person who defeated him, David Zaiser, to offer his congratulations.
Ballot position??? Fulmer served on borough council for over a decade. He was president of that body. His roots are in Quakertown. And yet he claims that the voters could not locate his name in a list of four? What an insult to the intelligence of everyone who took time to vote.
Ray underestimated the citizens while he served on council, and apparently is still doing so. Meredith is just parroting his long-time friend's words. A former council president, and a former newspaper publisher, totally out of touch. And that is the saddest of all.