[Editor: When public officials twist and distort facts to serve their political ambitions and personal agendas, when they rob you of your voice and of your rights, you don't have to be polite. There is no basis to respect them or their decision making.]

 

Don't believe me? You don't believe Jacki Otto is that callous or indifferent?  My interpretation of Otto's language may be snarky, but the swampland offer was real.  Click here to see her offer taxpayers a swamp park.  That was the second meeting in which Otto made that offer.

 

"Where's the Attorney? Where's Paul Burns?" 

The January 7 meeting began with that question from Trustee Wayne Dockett.

"We're talking about a multi million dollar deal here, of the people's money, and we don't have an attorney present."

 

So where was our Township's long time Attorney, Paul Burns?

The answer is ugly.

Burns fired Northfield Township.  He fired his worst client.

He fired us.

 

Burns' final advice, ignored, about handling the 23 acre parkspace treasure that's been bastardized into the North Village Development?

"Mow the grass"

- i.e. Make a Park.

 

Idiots ignore good advice.  In this meeting idiocy was in full flower.   Nothing would stop them from making motions, committments, offers, counter offers, and wild ass guesses.  Beliger made a motion to sell the land for $1,100,000.  Based on what?  There's been no formal appraisal, nothing to compete with the estimates provided by the developers themselves.  How naive do you have to be to allow buyers to dictate the terms?

The bidding on 75 Barker has reached $420,000.  For a 3/4 acre lot.  That's a clue.

Jackie, Janet, and Chockley loudly told us that they stood by the 40 attendee visioning sessions and working group visions that Planner Lippens massaged into a coherent plan.

But when the 'D' grade proposals came in, they blew off the faults. What visions? They don' need no stinkin' visions.

You can't tell us how wonderful the process is, then ignore the mismatch, the failure of the proposals to meet the goals.  Our goals.

Worst. Negotiators. Ever.

At this meeting Chick admitted that over 300 people voted in the survey showing that two thirds of the community wanted a park - only a park.

Just as unashamedly, or perhaps so clueless she didn't understand the connection, she claimed that the 40 and 50 people who showed up for the visioning sessions were the voices that really mattered.  She claimed that the people whose voices really mattered were those who didn't show up at this barely announced meeting.  ???

Wanna know why this is happening?  Half the the tax money haul, the loot, the bonanza, the jackpot, the filthy lucre, will go to the DDA, an unelected longtime community time sink.

  The DDA is still led by the same Veterinarian, Barb Griffith, who almost 20 years ago schemed to spend $21 million dollars of imaginary DDA tax dollars to build a Territorial Road bridge

  • DDA tax money is skimmed and stolen from the Police Department. 

  • DDA tax money is skimmed and stolen from the Fire Department. 

  • DDA tax money is skimmed and stolen from Medical Rescue.

  • DDA tax money is skimmed and stolen from every public good this community supports. 

  • DDA tax money is skimmed off and stolen from you.

  • And it's handed over to an unelected and unaccountable clique.

 And it's all perfectly legal.

The peak irony?  There will be little downtown left to develop. The guy who owns Pollys is pissed off because the Board won't grease the skids for a proposed expansion.  He's been hoarding parking for years.  Nobody talks about that.  Barker road and its parking lot is up for grabs;  it's gonna be sold.  The "park" development proposals allocate minimal space for actual business because, unsurprisingly, the builders are in the business of building housing. 

You're watching a Keystone Kops of Township Boards Klown-Lording over us, in Chockley's shameful words, a "representative government" that represents only the DDA.

 

 

What else happened?

We learned the Township has no attorney.  We learned that the township is attempting this real estate deal without a Real Estate agent. And mother of mercy, does it ever show.

We learned that our smug, bullying, leadership hasn't got a [expletive deleted] clue how to approach anything they're trying to do.