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Newark’s Snow Job

The Booker administration has spent in excess of $2 Million for public relations.  For what? Well, there is the idea that Newark is a secret waiting to be found.  A great location for you to visit and spend your money.  Money that winds up in the pockets of parking lot owners, restauranteurs, real estate tycoons and hockey moguls. 

A great portion of the city’s PR money goes toward the ‘expense’ of re-launching the city’s website.  A website that still does not provide residents with the possibility of paying their water or tax bills.                

Too bad it hasn’t dawned on Mayor Booker or the city council, that by making such a service available to residents, the foot traffic into city hall would be greatly reduced, and a further benefit would be the opportunity to reduce the city’s personnel and payroll—less customer service representatives would be required.                                                                                                                                                                                           

Speaking about reducing costs; Why is the Booker administration outsourcing sanitation duties to private industry?  Rather than buying more garbage trucks, the city is renting them.  Same thing when it came to snow removal, or salting the roads, during this past winter, the city contracted out.  Who knows, maybe its a rent-to-own agreement.  But who is going to own whom?

So much for tightening the proverbial budget belt in times of hardship.  In fact rather than downsizing the city’s vehicular fleet with hybrid vehicles, or even with smaller cars, the city has just entered into a decision to buy 8 GMC SUV’s.  I guess the price of gas is of little concern, when someone else foots the bill.  That someone else of course, are the taxpayers of this city.          

On second thought, maybe Newark does need good public relations,  after all a literal snow job is really what the city’s government needs in order to cover over all the bull crap about responsible and effective government that Mayor Booker loves to dish out.  The rich and well-connected get richer, the 'public servants' at their beck and call get 6 figure salaries, while services to Newark residents and the poor of this city diminish, public housing stock is decimated, new units go vacant, and hockey millionares get free police protection as their 'city owned' arena rakes in the bucks.                                   

What a snow job, what a city!

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