I admit it.

I find the deal struck by the City Manager and David Bowman utterly mystifying.  The handshake agreement allegedly has Mr. Bowman returning as Chief of Police for 6 months and then agreeing to leave the job.
 
What are citizens, police and taxpayers to make of this "deal"?  On its face, it looks like David Bowman will make little more than a symbolic cameo appearance as Chief and be paid generously to just go away.

But, on reflection, should we be surprised?  This "deal" is consistent with way the public sector seems to function in this State, County and City.  Whatever happens, be it waste, cozy deals, corruption, dysfunction, ineptitude, intra-department fights, lawsuits between government people, document tampering (as in the notorious Englewood Lifetime Free Health Benefits Ordinance...whatever…the cost is simply added to the taxpayers' tab. And, predictably, it is sold as a cost-effective public benefit.

For all the money, controversy and posturing, it is rare that any responsibility is assigned or trusted resolution achieved. No matter what happens, every government official or employee --  be they the whistleblower or the accused, the prevaricator or the truthteller -- seems to get back his or her job and get rewarded.

Case in point: in Mr. Bowman's first term as Chief, neither the whistleblowers who made serious allegations nor Chief Bowman, whom they accused, lost their jobs.  In neither case was the truth determined and responsibility assigned.  Instead, the taxpayers ended up just paying them all  -- and generously -- including the lawyers.

Feeling victimized?  Then let's definitely not start on how the public treasury is being used to legally shower our tax dollars on political cronies and donors!

Considering all the taxes we pay, why are NJ budgets increasingly in trouble?  Governments at all levels seem to be black holes into which geometrically increasing, yet strangely insufficient, quantities of public money are poured. Government people seem to continue to write huge treasury checks for each other to go away, to shut up, to cover up, to collect more pay, to up their pensions, to continue working or to retire early -- and with more lifetime benefits than any average taxpayer has a prayer of ever getting.

What to do?

First step: we can stop being played for gullible, manipulatable chuckleheads.  Let's be skeptical of what government officials say and start paying attention to what they actually do.  All we have to do is take a few minutes to occasionally look.  If we do, we'll see them kissing each other while we, once again, kiss our money good-bye.

In my last posting for the Englewood Report, I stated that Englewood and New Jersey are hallowed ground, worthy of "being nurtured with a high degree of financial and creative resources."  Before I present what I mean by this kind of quality stewardship, I wish to present the case for the national significance of our City, County and State.

As Americans, our American War of Independence is engraved into our psyches as the preeminent defining, transcendent event of our nation.  Abraham Lincoln certainly believed this. In November 1863, at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln delivered his immortal Address to a gathering of families who had lost brothers, sons and fathers, to assembled soldiers and, undoubtedly, a cadre of wealthy and powerful officials. Lincoln sought to console his listeners and to strengthen their resolve by making sense of the great loss — 50,000 casualties — that had so recently scarred our nation.

Lincoln began with words we all remember being taught in school:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation...

Four score and seven years —87— from 1863 would bring us to 1776: the birth year of our country. Why would Lincoln, in the midst of a violent fratricidal war, begin his address by citing the nation's founding? Clearly, Lincoln believed that the sacrifices that his generation was making were in the same sanctifying spirit as those made by colonial Americans.

So, in fact, did the level of fighting that took place in Englewood and New Jersey during in our War of Independence make these places national sacred ground? And, other than the sacrifice of armed conflict, did our ancestral townsfolk and New Jerseyans sustain a heavy hardships during this war?

Historians of New Jersey often cite the term "Cockpit of the Revolution" to describe the calamitous condition our state was in at that time. New Jersey was the site of more fighting that any of the other 13 colonies.  Estimates range to over seven hundred episodes, from small skirmishes to large battles. ["Crossroads of The American Revolution", Fleming, New Jersey in the American Revolution]

A study of New Jersey's geographic place in colonial America begins to explain why the state was the epicenter of military action. With the colonies' largest city, Philadelphia, to its southwest, and its second largest city, New York, to its northeast, New Jersey inevitably was the de facto central player in these cities' defenses. New Jersey not only became a major battleground, but also a home to a large number of armed camps, both Whig and Tory.

And it was not just the amount of military activity that took place in New Jersey, but its importance to the overall history of the Revolutionary War that vouches for the state's pivotal role. Let's think back to the events of 1776. The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, had declared the country's independence. George Washington, appointed by the congress as the commander of American forces, had in some respects bluffed the British into surrendering Boston. Seeing their position as suddenly un-defendable, the British depart for Nova Scotia to regroup. These and other fortuitous events, along with inexperience on our part, lead many Americans to conclude that the British had no desire for a long and costly conflict, and that the war would be over in short order.

There was scarcely a militia man who did not think himself equal to two or three of the British.
[McCullough, 1776, 117]

Such miscalculations quite nearly brought an end to a group of revolutionaries who had just five-months earlier declared their sovereignty as a political body, and along with them, the end of an experiment in modern democratic statehood.

How this near collapse happened can be summarized so: following the British evacuation of Boston, Congress ordered the Continental Army to New York to defend the city and the crucial waterway, the Hudson. While General Washington and his staff were well aware of the difficulty of defending the city, they were also ill equipped and grossly inexperienced. The British, on the other hand, were advantaged. With their return to the colonies on June 29, the British brought a large naval force and, with it, 30,000+ troops. In rapid succession, the British occupied Staten Island, landed at Gravesend Bay, Long Island and proceeded to drive the rebels from Flatbush, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Kips Bay, Harlem Heights and White Plains. Then, Fort Washington, with 3000 American defenders, fell.

In a disastrous campaign for New York in which Washington's army had suffered one humiliating, costly reverse after another, this, the surrender of Fort Washington on Saturday, November 16, was the most devastating blow of all, an utter catastrophe.
[McCullough, 1776,  242]

With New York lost, the war's fighting shifted to New Jersey.

In this way, our nation's history shows just how much our City, County and State are worth fighting for. But, does our stewardship of these places reflect this worthiness?

Stay tuned for my next entry.

Related reading:
• Gerlach, Larry R., The Road to Revolution: New Jersey's Revolutionary Experience. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Society, 1975.
• Lefkowitz, Arthur S., The Long Retreat: The Calamitous American Defense of New Jersey, 1776. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998.
• Lundin, Leonard. Cockpit of the Revolution: The War for Independence in New Jersey. New York: Octagon Books, 1972.
• McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
• Pomfret, John E., Colonial New Jersey: a History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.

The Director of the Recreation Department, Merle Simons, has been working out of the little Rec office in the gatehouse at the entrance of Mackay Park since 1990. 

Our Rec Director has an impressive academic résumé, having received a Masters from Columbia University while continuing on to her doctorate there. Merle is a widely respected professional, having served as Chair of the the NJ Recreation and Parks Association Awards Committee for four years.  In that capacity, she heads the professionals who go across the state grading facilities and granting awards to the very best in a variety of categories and classes.  Merle has also served as past president of the Bergen, Passaic, Hudson County Recreation Association.

The Englewood Department of Recreation offers a dizzying array of programs and activities for youth, families and seniors.  The Recreation Department has something for everyone: family outings, cooking instruction, violin lessons, self-defense classes and a slew of sports activities like skating, skiing, hockey, tennis, golf, flag football, soccer, cheerleading and weight training. There are even computer classes for children ages 3 - 7. And the department is always open to more suggestions.

In fact, according to Merle, "A lot of our programs are inspired by residents and what they are passionate about."

For instance, cooking classes for kids were started by a sophomore at the Academies, while outdoor cooking classes were initiated by a woman who wanted to teach the culinary arts in our parks.  An accomplished young Englewood violinist, Joel Harmon, offered to teach the instrument to our youth and now has a number of students.  Simons also cites flag football as yet another example of a resident's initiative.

Englewood has made a serious investment in Recreation, as the department has a budget of $1 million to fund salaries, transportation, pool maintenance and the like. Merle has programs running all over our City and, at times, utilizes spaces found in schools and churches.  But Merle does have a "wish list."  Here are her top three:

1. A multi-purpose room that would always be available for programs.
2. A multi-purpose field for soccer, football and lacrosse.
3.  A skate park like that found in Tenafly.  Merle has already received a petition of 148 signatures that supports this idea.

To find Department of Recreation programs that might be just right for your family, a complete schedule can be downloaded from their web page at the City of Englewood website.

Manipulation. Bias. Spin. Dishonesty.  American public life is riddled with the symptoms of obfuscation and doublespeak Orwell so vividly diagnosed. A Big Brother-style dystopia has not come to pass, but tools are available to spinmeisters and image-makers that allow them to detach politics from reality on a daily basis.

-What Orwell Didn't Know

Let's face it – we are often too busy to vet the candidates we have to choose from.  So, we generally just "go with our gut," as Stephen Colbert likes to say.  The political class knows this and has developed some very effective methodologies to spin and distract voters from inconvenient facts. These include:

1. Visual Symbols – flag pins, religious symbols, family pictures, photo ops, or even a flight suit on an aircraft carrier.
2. Empty Assertions – "Candidate X is a good man." "Candidate Y cares about children." "Candidate Z is a patriot...a family man...a person of integrity...an animal lover who prays a lot."
3. Outright Deception – Swiftboat Veterans for (un)Truth, Defense of Marriage (and Gay Discrimination) Act, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (and Big Oil Drilling) Act.
4. Denials of Reality – "I did not have sex with that woman," "I am not a crook," "I did not take the money," "I've never used steroids," "I cannot be bought."
5. Character Assassination (or Shooting the Messenger) – Plamegate, Whistleblower Retaliation, Global Warming Deniers Attacking Gore.

For an example of a local politician putting these methodologies to work, let's turn our attention to Cristina Kumka's investigative article on Vernon Walton in the January 30 edition of The Suburbanite.  Here we find the following facts concerning the developer ERA's political donations to Vernon Walton's campaign fund:

In February 2007, Walton voted to approve a deal between the city and ERA for a $200 million project to be built on the city's largest and most valuable land south of Route 4. At the time, Walton was a member of the city's Planning Board.

...in 2006, records show, Walton reported on a May 2006 ELEC form that he accepted $2,500 from "ERA properties" directly.

Walton refutes the record. He said he never accepted money from a developer with an application on the table.

"That was ERN. That issue was already addressed. It wasn't, period," Walton said last week. Walton said he did speak to someone about the name of the donor on the ELEC form, but couldn't remember that person's name.

ERN Properties of Paramus did not make a donation to the Walton campaign, according to a list of campaign contributions reported by the company.

So, here's a blatant example of a politician utilizing methodology #4, Denials of Reality, after getting caught casting his vote in favor of a contributor's project. In other words, Walton is employing the classic "Who Do You Believe, Me or Your Lyin' Eyes?" defense.

I invite you to read the article and check out how the BCDO pay-to-players are utilizing all 5 methodologies to spin us.