The Death of a Campaign

When they were building T-4 in the JFK airport, I had the opportunity to ensure our new facilities met standards and labor requirements for our workers.

Eight leaks sprung in the new lounge and administrators’ offices four months after taking occupancy.

There were no political platforms to leverage. Most of us just rolled our eyes when we saw the garbage cans full of water. We couldn’t believe a building sanctioned by the state, the feds, the port authority and international airlines was so ready to bust open after one or two moderate rains.

Point is these things happen. Right? 

No. 

In all the managerial experience touted by town council in 2016, someone probably should have had the foresight to contract better tools to solve these issues. If Mr. Varnerin wanted to see building safety improve for our employees, he’d work with the people trying to fix it. Much like our own administrator Liza Viana – instead of obsessively making political inferences about the Mayor. Given his rather negative statements about the work of township employees, I’d say he is not working with anyone to make things better.

We’re watching someone attack the merits of a damn good employee. An Administrator who organized a town-wide mask distribution network, created a buddy system for transporting seniors to vaccine clinics. We know budget time is an overload for her but at the direction of the Mayor, she worked to keep our tax increase zero that year while fighting an aggressive form of cancer, all while dragging the muni project to completion.

I did this once before myself: I ran for office and I had to explain ways I thought I could do better, referencing my own capabilities and without reducing my content to attacks. Not just because I’d have to work with my opponents one day. 

Because they were people. 

People that have their struggles. No matter how much they might smile. And someone like myself might have been offensive just by questioning and being critical of work people spent a lot of time on. But there’s a line.

Read Jeff’s content. Read the flyers sent to your home. Compare to Angie’s open communication standard. Compare this to her willingness to address long-standing township issues that have no political benefit to her managing.

When you want to know who to vote for, look no further than his message.

I believe the issues the Varnerin campaign are trying to highlight are things that Mayor Devanney could have easily hidden for longer. Our Mayor could have appeased people with short-term solutions. Instead, the Mayor and Administrator communicated precisely about the town’s issues. So we can tell for ourselves if the actions taken were substantial or not. For instance, I believe stormwater infrastructure failure was too often easily blamed on climate or township geology. Not anymore. To boldly identify that this as an issue that needs to be addressed finally is a level of honesty we need in our government.

Compare his campaign jargon to our Mayor’s evidenced ability to cross political lines and work with critics such as myself. 

Please ask yourself, who is best fit to represent you in our township? Who has the essential attitude and insight to do the job gracefully? Ask who can be self-critical when they need to change course or adapt regardless of their opinion.

We have that. Don’t replace it with someone who is purposely hurtful to employees and can only lie about the work of others to gain political footing for themselves. Don’t replace that with a monopoly that has shown, time and time again, a platform of attacks not just on elected officials – but our neighbors.

by John Leo Jr.