COUTO DOUBLES DOWN ON CAMPAIGN LIE, DISPARAGES EMPLOYEES IN PROCESS

Couto Doubles Down on the Lie and Devalues Employees

“I will only be approving professional service providers and those in leadership positions based on their capabilities, qualifications and demonstrated ability to get things back on track….” 

This is what Couto says he is responsible for as councilman for when it comes to hiring contractors.  He’s right. It is exactly what he did with the municipal complex contractor.  He supported nearly every aspect of the muni building in step with his fully Republican committee at the time making any negligence today his failure.

By the way, nice marble floors in the municipal building foyer.  Wonder how much those cost.

Now Couto wants to hire professionals to repair a waste treatment plant backup flare yet we still suffer from his last faux pas… hiring based on “capabilities, qualifications and demonstrated abilities.” Not sure I’m confident in his standard and I’m sure he’s telling residents to vote for him and it will solve their issues.

In the lack of any substantive campaign plan, Couto and Varnerin are relying on creating a narrative that the town has been neglected by Mayor Devanney’s administration.  It’s patently false.  It’s false because Varnerin/Couto are trying to capitalize on the fact that Devanney had the wisdom, albeit took the political risk, to open up the can of worms left for her…. By Couto et al. What we’re witnessing is her administration dealing with the political consequences of spending the time addressing aging township infrastructure. 

My sentiments on Manny and Jeff stems from my own attempts to engage and work with them on township projects such as a new tree ordinance.  We all watched while developers cleared out hundreds of irreplaceable, mature trees at Little Flower.*  The very same large developers Couto and a Republican monopoly welcomed to our town with no resistance. Nor with any engagement as to how the developer will mitigate consequences of their build. We had a chance to develop ordinance language that would put more onus on large developers to replace such losses and make requirements for replacing trees more reasonable. There are ways to do this as our ordinance is dated from a time when there were no major developers such as today. Couto passed up every opportunity to discuss ways forward on this. When approached with possible solutions he merely distracted and changed the subject apparently not even familiar with the details involved in a township ordinance.  Jeff did similar and ignored olive branches I gave him to try to mend differences between him and the Environmental Commission.  

As Cuoto says in his Week 2 TapInto article, solutions do not come quickly but he keeps claiming foul when proper solutions are already being worked on thanks to Mayor Devanney.  So Manny and Jeff want to put back in the same management team that left these issues for us, essentially claiming it’s someone else’s problem. 

If they are going to continue to bash the people they work with and rely on to keep the town running, then I don’t want them representing me and my family.  Their words in their TapInto articles this week are not representative of leaders. Being on this offense shows they have no plan different than the one already enacted. 

Please don’t allow them to reverse positive gains since Mayor Devanney was elected.  Please don’t let them attack our township employees and their hard work. Couto and Varnerin are attempting to make the case that their own special qualifications are the right ones to fix issues. Issues they left us. The ability to ignore aging infrastructure while being “yes men” are not unique qualifications. We don’t need that now while a mayor and administrator intimately familiar with proper township management are mid-battle getting us where our town needs to be.  

*Speaking of flooding. It is approximated that one mature oak can soak up 100 gallons/day of ground water.  Assuming the loss of 300 mature trees (mostly oaks) for the Little Flower development, it can be surmised that the lot no longer has the capability to remove 30,000 gallons of water per day from the ground. So you can see that the decisions to allow builders into our town without appropriate tools to mitigate their impact -tools that Couto and Varnerin now obstructed- is damaging to our town.

-John Leo Jr.