Council Members Taxing Us All

A week or so back, I wrote about the candidates who are running for Millville City Council. In that piece, I mentioned that William Herman had been the Millville chief of police and had retired a few years ago due to an investigation into his running background checks on his daughter’s restaurant employees. A deal was struck that Herman would retire with full benefits and the investigation would be dropped. Frankly, it doesn’t sound like much of a deal for Millville citizens.

All hell broke loose when Herman declared his candidacy for city commission. Apparently, part of the deal is that Herman would never seek employment with the city again.

Does running for city commission constitute employment? On the surface, it sounds like a silly question. Serving as a publicly elected official should be one of the noblest things a person does. But here in Millville (and perhaps other places), city commissioners are paid, receive health benefits, and build a pension.

There’s a lot of talk about balancing the state’s financial woes on the backs of public employees. As a public school teacher, this is obviously dipleasing. But, there is no reason local elected leaders should benefit financially in this fashion. Not only should our Acting Governor target these perks, there should be an investigation as to how this came to be. I would be surprised if the average taxpayer/voter understood those he votes for will receive these benefits. And given that municipalities receive state funds, it turns out everyone in New Jersey is funding our elected officials and perhaps one who had to leave his job because of an ethics investigation.

A judge recently cleared Herman to run office.

Splendid.

Also blogged on this date . . .

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