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Posted on 11/04/2011 8:36:05 PM PDT by kara2008
Glenn Beck clearly works hard to make sure that each segment of his GBTV show ranks high in measures of quality and content. But you can tell when he classifies a topic as a “must watch” segment. There are two such clips in this post.
Consider this a story of a destiny reclaimed. One town, best by squabbles and scandals, rises up to chart a new and very American course.
Until November 2010, Vernon Township, New Jersey did not have a Mayor. Instead, the town functioned under the Faulkner Act – a “council-manager” – form of government. Under this system council members perform the town’s necessary administrative functions, with one council member serving either as an appointed (by the council members) or elected “mayor.” Effectively this individual is a figurehead and does not possess actual veto power. In addition, the council usually hires a “manager” to serve as the town’s chief executive. Typically, the result is a recipe for confusion, corruption and government inefficiency.
Interestingly enough, in Vernon’s case the majority of its residents happened to be conservative, effectively eliminating Independents and Democrats from having any say in their local government. As it were, Vernon, NJ essentially operated as a single party township.
The tipping point for residents came when the sleepy town’s government scandals, in-fighting and inefficiency became regular occurrences, often featured in local and national newspapers. It was then, in the fall of 2010, that the people of Vernon had had enough, and decided to toss out their entire local government, replacing it with a Mayor-Council form of government, where the Mayor is directly elected by the voters. The townsfolk, among other factors, cited the Declaration of Independence as their inspiration for changing their little town for the better.
The following excerpt was taken from “Change Vernon’s Government” Facebook page from 2010:
In August 2010, 3,721 citizens of Vernon Township said that they have had enough, and they want to put a question on referendum to change their form of government. Vote “YES” on the November 2, 2010 referendum.
"Our mission is to change our form of government in Vernon, N.J. to a government that is more accountable directly to the voters. We have had enough mismanagement, wasteful spending, poor planning, and incompetencein our township and want to restore integrity to our township government by having the ability to directly vote for our mayor, something we do not currently have the right to do. We are fed up with the stranglehold and unwholesome control the same group of partisan politicians have had on our town, constantly putting us in the headlines with embarrassment, corruption, mismanagement, and inappropriate interference in our town government and municipal operations. We want to elect qualified non-partisan candidates to our governing body."
Sound familiar?
So did the town ever get to elect their real mayor? Watch the GBTV clips below to see what the people of Vernon did:
[See the two clips ~6 min and ~10 min posted at the source link]
The conservatives from this NJ town were inspired by the Declaration of Independence and changed their local government for the better.
GB ping!
save for weekend viewing
I live not too far from Vernon and never heard of this
I once lived there. A lot of political cronyism even then. Fled New Jersey close to 20 years ago because too many people were moving in from the city. Now my nearest neighbor speaks "moooo" (but the sales tax is 1.65% higher)... How far are you from the recently flooded onion fields?
I am actually 37 mi. from Vernon, (I checked)—
thought I was closer-—driving to certain customers
I often see turnoffs for Vernon. An interesting development
there. At least there was a sizable majority population still able to act on its own behalf. The same is not true for the worst offenders, towns small and large, so steeped
in corruption and bleeding the system dry by “officials”, that there’s no chance for a sensible ‘uprising’ like this.
What was that small California town which should serve as an
example of “what’s gone wrong”??Ashamed to say I’ve forgotten it.) Don’t know anything about those onion fields.
Just remembered the Cal. town : It was BELL, California,
“the most corrupt town in America”.
We had a mini-scandal up here in the Clarkstown NY area
(I live in Bergen Cty NJ, but my political friends are in
Rockland)—It was discovered that the THREE “top” police officials in Clarkstown were ALL raking in over $300,000/yearly. That’s nearly double what Ray Kelly of NYC
makes. My friends from “Disgusted Taxpayers” started making an issue of this at the beginning of the new Tea Party consciousness nearly 3 years ago, but I haven’t checked in recently to see how its progressing.Clarkstown used to send over contingents of local officials to ‘participate’ in our Rally for America Tea Party meetings at the Nanuet Mall Food Court, and try to explain to us why it wasn’t nearly as bad as we were making it. One ludicrous 60ish Woman official had to nerve to stand up and say “You’re just not taking into account that some of these officers have many years of Seniority”.
The Tea Parties need to take over the local towns and counties. The old corrupt ways can be changed. We are Americans! Drop the unions! Outsource city jobs to private companies.
Pine Island, NY (Orange County). Lost the entire crop to the floods of Irene/Lee. (I assumed that you lived in NY - sorry.)
Vernon has always been a Republican territory (as is Sussex County as a whole) but back when I lived there they kept to the Sgt. Schultz mentality - "I see nothing..." (Yes, I know that being Republican does not necessarily mean you are conservative...)
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