My history: My name is Ken Chiarella and I am running as an Independent for Mayor. I am the great grandson of a Monroe farmer who moved to Monroe after arriving at Ellis Island about 100 years ago. My father recently left Monroe because he could not afford that taxes in the town that he was born and raised in. That same story is being repeated all over Monroe Township. I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Political Science from Rutgers University. I work for CVS Pharmacy as a Regional Loss Prevention Manager. I have a wife and children. I have served on the Monroe Township Board of Education until 11 months ago. I was on the Planning Board as an Alternate for about a year and resigned after realizing that the game was rigged in favor of developers. My resignation letter is here and explains why I left. Resignation

I was also a member of the Historic Preservation Commission and I was a Liaison to the Recreation Board from the Board of Ed.

Stop development. All development! We are not looking to create new schemes for developers to enter Monroe to build anything. Light industrial schemes will bring more developers, more traffic and the need for more services. The revenue they will generate will not reduce taxes. It might help stabilize taxes but at what cost? We will have more strip malls with a pizza place, dry cleaners, a bagel place and a Subway in each new strip mall. We don’t need that. We need to clean up our local government. The time for planning development is over. We have allowed developers to run this town for nearly 30 years and we don’t even have a town center. We now need to plan to cut the fat out of government. We have to stop development, create an active chamber of commerce with a shop local program and give Monroe residents an incentive to shop locally

We do not need to continue building in Monroe to offset taxes. We can offset taxes by bringing services in house. The costs for the Law firm and engineering firm are due to development. The cost for our school district is due to rampant development. We will need more schools as development continues and that will cause tax increases.  We brought our legal services in-house while I was serving on the Board of Education and we have seen a sizable savings. We can stop those increases by stopping all development at the master plan level and at the application level.

We have to take party politics outside of our borders. Under the Faulkner act, which Monroe is currently organized under, we have the option of making our elections non-partisan. Imagine elections where the integrity and ideas of a candidate matter more than the party they belong to? The elected officials from the parties would have to come to Monroe to ask for support based upon what they will do for our taxpayers.

We need to protect our utilities. The current administration acquired the Monroe Township Utilities Authority and the 50 million dollars they had in reserves. The Authority became the Monroe Township Utilities Department and the township just borrowed 20 million dollars to fund that department. What happened to the 50 million? The money was used to offset municipal tax increases. What happens now that the money is gone? Taxes will increase again. The utilities department makes approximately 4 million dollars per year. That revenue is generated by charging developers to hook up to water and sewer, and now the department is being funded with debt. This is one reason why they will not stop developing no matter what the Master Plan currently stipulates. They have shown that they are willing to change the master plan when it suits their development schemes.

We estimate that our utilities are worth approximately $165 million dollars if there were sold. Selling would be a nice way to kick the can down the road for a while but then it would get ugly. Look at the rates of surrounding towns. When other towns have sold their utilities the rates for water and sewer have skyrocketed. We must have our elected officials pledge to never sell our utilities.

Community: We are one community. We need to build bridges within our community. We grew too fast and we lost our rural character. Stopping development will give us a chance to assimilate and build community ties for all of our residents. We have proposed our community commission in order to accomplish this. The mayor will sit on this commission with representatives of all communities. They will meet monthly to discuss issues and come up with solutions, create community events and to find ways to build bridges.

I have made several pledges over the past few months.

• I will not accept pay to be your mayor. I will not accept any benefit other than the personal benefit of being able to fix the issues that  plague our town.

• I will not sell our utilities.

• I will not accept PAC donations or donations from professional services…Ever! This choice has limited our reach in this election but we have maintained our integrity.

• I will institute term limits. I was always against term limits until I saw the effects of money on our system. The parties set up a monopoly through patronage and PAC donations. We need to limit the power of individual politicians and guard against a power monopoly unfairly gained by the money in politics.

• I will make our town non-partisan. Good ideas come from people and not from party politics. There are good ideas and good people in both parties but better results, on the local level, come from elected officials who are not bound to party platforms and party politics.

You can view our entire platform and our fiscal plan at http://www.independentsformonroe.com .

We have an opportunity to make real change in Monroe on November 3rd but that will be up to you. If you want real change then please vote Line D!

PLEASE VOTE LINE D on November 3rd!

If you are wondering what Monroe Township paid employees and our professional services do on Election Day we have the answer. They work for Gerry Tamburro while getting paid with your tax dollars. For instance, in the 2015 Primary salaried employees were enlisted by Gerry to work the polls as challengers. Many showed up in township vehicles, wearing township clothing and were being paid by the township while acting on Gerry’s behalf. They were compelled to do this. This is how Gerry operates. He forces the township employee, many of whom are wonderful people, to support him, put up his signs, work polls and do other campaign related jobs. Just pull a township employee aside and ask them. Just make sure Gerry isn’t around or they will run and hide.  He will say he “asked” them.  This is the root of the problem.  When a boss “asks” for a favor like this can you say “no”?   Our employees should not be placed in this position.

We can and should do better, Monroe! Our employees are not, and should not, be forced campaign workers while also being paid by taxpayer dollars. The Primary was on June 2, 2015, and that is a Tuesday. They were working.

We have attached the list of Challengers we received via OPRA request from the Middlesex County Clerk’s office.

Your tax dollars at work!

Here is a brief list but you can see the entire list of challengers below:

Mark Rasimowicz- Owner of Center State Engineering firm. Mark also holds a job in Monroe Township and receives a pension.

Karen Adreadis- Mayor’s Administrative Assistant.

Jay Brown– Township employee Recreation Department

Jeanne Crowley- Township Employee Recreation Department

John Riggs- Environmental Manager for Township

Albert Carpenito- Township Employee Rec Center.

There are more but here is the full list: MONROE CHALLENGERS PRIMARY Copy

Gerry Tamburro told a fib on October 8th at the candidate’s forum and we have the proof. Please watch the video and then read the rest of the story below.  Please share this as we need for everyone to know the man who wants to be our mayor.

The Monroe Pay to Play laws were enacted in 2006 after Mayor Richard Pucci got caught accepting $165,000 from the Developers who are building the homes on Rt. 33 and Rt 522. It turns out the Mayor Pucci had a consulting firm that he ran out of his house. That firm only had one client and that client happened to be a major developer in Monroe Township. Mayor Pucci also serves on the planning board where both of these developments were to be approved. Link to that story.

T&M Associates does business in Monroe. T&M Associates is an engineering firm and gave to Gerry in 2013 and also had business in Monroe Township. For instance, they represented Parker House as the engineering firm before, Planning, Zoning and the Environmental Commission. They gave Gerry Tamburro $5200 in 2013 and $900 in 2015 during the primary campaign. If we take a look at the Political Action Committees we can see where all of the developers are. The developers give to the PAC’s who then give to the parties. We have various PAC filings below that show various developers who do business with Monroe. Note Matrix, Federal Business and Joseph Morris, who gave a PAC named Developer’s PAC for $7200 each! Federal Business Centers Inc. owns land on Rt. 33 and is a developer and so does Joseph Morris. They build right here in Monroe. Developers PAC filing with ELEC.

That PAC then gave money to a PAC named NJ Senate Democratic Majority who then gave to Pucci and team. There are so many of these that I could spend an entire week researching the violations of the public trust by Tamburro and the current administration. I believe that I have provided enough to prove that Tamburro lied on October 8 at the Senior Center, and he lied to you!

The ELEC Filings are below.

I just wanted to take a minute to thank Regency for the candidate forum.  It was well attended and they provided a very warm welcome.  Thank you!!

Ken

We just wanted to put out an alert that there are some emails going out that are not being put out by us.  Those emails are asking people to vote for Ken Chiarella for Mayor and they have included some of our information, but they also have added a piece that we did not put out that uses the word “Skim” and also calls out a deceased Councilman and another employee.  I have no idea why they are doing this. It could be misplaced enthusiasm or something more sinister to link us to something that we did not put out.  We just want you to know that the email on “skimming” is not from us. There are only 11 days left and the nonsense is in full bloom.
Thank you.
Ken

Our letter to the Editor published in the paper today, 10-22-15.  letter to the editor.

The Word version:

The Independent candidates- myself , running for Mayor and Chirag Bhagat ad Stan Edelman who are running for Council -have been kept out of candidate forums in Renaissance and Greenbriar at Whittingham. We were purposely blocked from attending so that our message would not reach the residents of those communities. Why did this happen? My best guess is that our message upsets the two party monopolies.
We are not looking to cut services but to enhance them. We want to cut wasteful spending and bring the professional services in house, which will save millions of dollars. We are going to eliminate political patronage jobs. We have made a pledge to not accept campaign contributions from developers and professional services. Our opponents have not made this pledge. In fact our opponents are accepting tens of thousands of dollars from political action committees and party donations that are filled with donations from developers and professional services that do business in Monroe. Do you wonder why the development never stops and why taxes keep going up? It is because developers run Monroe Township.
Monroe is being fleeced by politicians, developers and professional services. Both parties own the responsibility for our predicament. The politicians in Monroe wear multiple hats and all have a pretty stipend attached. The Mayor is also the police commissioner and gets an additional $15,000 for that job. He gets his taxpayer funded health benefits from the Middlesex County Improvement Authority and then opts out of healthcare in Monroe and gets an additional $7000 for opting out. He also gets a $3000 per year stipend for incidentals. The Council President, also running for Mayor, gets a $7000 healthcare opt out check too, and a $3000 stipend on top of his pay for being a Councilman. Councilwoman Koppel also gets the same deal. The Republican on the Council also gets a $7000 opt out check and a $3000 stipend. Plus, they all get pensions. These are part-time elected officials! They should not be fleecing us like this. Two parties working together for their own benefit.

We have to end these practices and restore the trust of the people and the integrity of those offices. To these ends, if elected, we will not accept pensions; opt out checks or payments of any kind. This will save the taxpayers approximately $300,000 over four years starting on day one!
I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we need to restore the public trust and we need to stop the machine that puts the special interests of developers, elected officials and professional services above the needs of the taxpayers.
Our plan is to take Monroe out of the political game of Monopoly. Our elections should be independent and non-partisan. We are not a Monopoly card, we are people trying to feed our families and survive. My family has been in Monroe for 100 years and my father was recently forced to move in order to retire because taxes are too high. I am hearing that same story repeated all over Monroe Township. This is just not right.
The reasons that I noted above are why we have been excluded from forums. They don’t want you to hear our message because our message is the truth.
We should not be rewarding our town and our tax dollars to politicians and developers. We should force the state and local politicians of both parties to come to Monroe and ask for our support by showing us that they support us by passing legislation that will give us more state aid for our schools. Schools are 60% of the property tax burden but we receive only $2,755,488 in state aid on a budget that is over 100 million dollars. Surrounding communities receive millions of dollars more in aid than we do because the funding formula is broken. They need to pass legislation that allows towns like ours to ask for impact fees from developers. That is illegal in NJ.  It is illegal because developers run the show. We should be able to ask developers to pay for the schools needed due to their developments.
We have an opportunity to make a change on November 3rd and send a message that we need relief, honesty in government, politicians with integrity and we need to Move Monroe Forward with good ideas that come from the people of Monroe regardless of their party affiliation.
Thank you!
Ken Chiarella

Do you know what perks and payments Tamburro, Koppel and Pucci get from your hard earned tax dollars?

They get their salaries, but that isn’t enough for them so they padded their pocketbooks and helped themselves to more of your money.

In addition to their part-time salary they give themselves:

• $3000 per year for incidentals

• $7000 per year checks for opting out of healthcare. Part-time politicians but full time pay! For example, Mayor Pucci gets his taxpayer funded healthcare from the Middlesex County Improvement authority. You pay for that. Then he opts out of healthcare in Monroe and gets a $7000 check. You are paying twice for Mayor Pucci to get healthcare, and a check for not getting healthcare.

• Stipends for wearing multiple hats. Mayor Pucci, for instance, is also the police commissioner for an additional $15,000 of your hard earned money.  This is on top of our “good” Mayor’s salary of $210,000 at the MCIA (Which you also pay for) and a $400 car allowance.  His pension will be $150,000 per year when he retires in January.  Here is a link to that.

• They get pensions! Part-time politicians are getting pensions in Monroe. No wonder they are giving themselves all of these perks. They are padding their pensions at your expense.

• Ken Chiarella, if elected Mayor, will end this once and for all and we will save you $300,000 on day one by not accepting any pensions, perks or payments.

Below are the copies of the healthcare opt out checks as proof.

Please vote Line D on November 3rd and stop this travesty.

Ken Chiarella for Mayor. Chirag Bhagat and Stanley Edelman for Council.

Did you know that we have all sorts of interesting properties in the Monroe Township Open Space Inventory?

When you think about an open space preservation program you think of a program that was created with the intent of preserving open space in order to contain development. The program, if managed properly, could really benefit the residents of Monroe.

When you look at many of the Gerry Tamburro sign locations, it almost seems like they acquired some locations in order to have spots for Gerry’s signs.  If you get a chance, print the list of the homes on both lists below and drive by.  You will see Tamburro signs at some of those locations.  That is a violation of Gerry’s own sign ordinance!

We do have some legitimate open space acquisitions that have benefited the residents but we also have some acquisitions that really don’t make sense. Those acquisitions look more like favors for political allies and supporters of the administration than open space acquisition for the sake of preserving open space.

The administration is also bumping up their open space numbers to make the program look better than it actually is. Did you know what the current administration lists in their open space inventory? We have attached the list, but there are things like:

• The toxic waste dump on Spotswood Gravelhill road.

• Runoff retention basins.

• Schools.

• Golf Courses.

• Sewerage treatment inlets.

• Berms

• Easements. That’s right! If you have an easement on your private property it is considered open space!

We need smart open space acquisition. We need to take the political patronage out of our open space program and acquire real open space. These are your tax dollars and they need to be spent for your benefit.  We should not be spending money on small scraps of land, or on old houses owned by the politically connected.  Those scraps would be open space anyway, because they cannot be built upon, without spending our hard earned money on them.

The documents at the link below list the current open space inventory and the proposed inventory. Note the small size of some of the parcels and the locations.

Open Space Inventory:  OPEN SPACE INVENTORY 6-5-2015 Copy

Future Open Space Targets:  TARGETED OPEN SPACE 5-12-2015 Copy

Please vote for Ken Chiarella for Mayor and Bhagat and Edelman for Council.

Our Plan:

Restore the Integrity of the Mayor’s Office and Cut the Waste:

We will save the taxpayers of Monroe Township approximately $300,000 on day one by not accepting any payment, alternate positions or Pensions if we are elected.

Mayor: $15,000

Mayor is currently also Police Commissioner: $15,000

Health Care Opt Out Check: $7,000

Stipend: $3000

Total savings over 4 years: $160,000

Council 2 Members: $6500 each
Health care opt out $7000

Stipends: $3000 each

Total Savings over 4 years: $132,000

Total: $292,000

Cut Political Patronage Jobs:

There are several political patronage jobs that were awarded to a former councilman, owners of the engineering firm and law firms. We will eliminate those positions day one. Those positions are nothing but rewards for political allegiance and do not serve the taxpayers.

Owner of Center State is also an employee. The Director of Center State is also a township employee. They charge us as a firm and also are employees that will receive pensions that taxpayers are footing the bill for.

Position elimination savings: $370,000

Bring Professional Services in House: The Board of Ed did this while Ken Chiarella was on the Board. The savings has been $300,000 since implementation in 2014. The savings for Monroe Township by bringing services in house will be 2.1 million dollars. The current law firm is budgeted at $675,000 per year, but they also charge for the tax appeals phone calls, lawsuits and everyone other billable item.  Bringing those services in-house will save the Monroe Township Taxpayers millions of dollars. 

Savings: $2.1Million Dollars.

Open Space Tax:

We will put the open space tax to a vote for the people to decide. It is our belief that we can cut the open space tax and increase the acquisition of open space. The current administration is using open space dollars to award the politically connected and to use the funds for things like fixing tennis courts at the high school for $300,000. Of course, they only did this after we shed light on the fact that the Board of Ed and the Administration have had an awful relationship. The Administration even charged the Board of Ed 2 million dollars to connect the new high school and Oak Tree School. Those are your tax dollars being spent where there should have been an agreement to save the taxpayers’ money.

The current open space roster includes things like retention basins, easements on private property, berms, golf courses, sewerage treatment sites, schools and even the toxic waste dump on Spotswood Gravelhill road. We can save 1 million dollars in open space taxes and still acquire more real open space land.

Savings: $1 million dollars.

Shared Services with Board of Ed and Surrounding Towns:

We have an opportunity to work with the Board of Education on shared services for things like plowing lots, paving and by creating economies of scale when purchasing fuel, heating oil and paper.

The township owns the equipment that can pave and plow and yet the Board of Education hires out contractors to plow the schools when it snows and to do things like paving. For instance, the Board of Ed could buy the materials and the township could pave the parking lot at the tennis courts which is currently very dangerous. That would enable a cost savings for taxpayers.

Snow plowing and landscaping alone would save the taxpayers an inordinate amount of money. The township has the staff and the machinery. Why are we paying twice for these services?

Plowing Paving and Landscaping Savings at Schools Savings: $348,000 per year

Total savings: $4,110,000

We have been locked out of the forums for the Monroe Township candidates in Renaissance and Greenbriar.  We aren’t going to cry over spilled milk.  We are going to keep fighting and keep moving forward.

To that effort we have to make a plea for donations and help. Yes, we are begging. We are a grassroots team without party support.  We are spending every dollar wisely to get the word out.  Any donations, no matter how small, will really help us spread the word, especially in the communities where we have been barred from taking part in forums.

The Dems are heavily funded with money from Developers and professional services, and we estimate that they are going to spend approximately $100,000 to keep us out.  Imagine that.  $100,000 for a $15,000 per year for a part-time Mayor’s seat.  Ken and his team have already pledged to do the job for free.  That will be a net savings of almost $400,000 dollars back in taxpayer’s pockets over 4 years.  Ken is not rich and could use the money, but he feels that we need a good faith effort, after years of fleecing by elected officials, to bring integrity back to the mayor’s office.  We need to end the reign of developers in Monroe Township!

Should you decide to donate, all checks should be made out to “friends of Chiarella, Bhagat and Edelman.

Checks can be sent to: Friends of Chiarella, Bhagat and Edelman

116 Pergola ave.,

Monroe, N.J. 08831

We will be at Garba on Saturday and we have a table at Oktoberfest.  We look forward to seeing you there.
Thank you and PLEASE vote on November 3rd!
Ken Chiarella

On October 7th and on October 8th there were forums for the Monroe Township candidates running in the November 3rd election.

Ward 2 Councilman Gerry Tamburro, who is running for Mayor was pressed by Ken Chiarella regarding donations from political action committees and the county party, which are filled with donations from developers and professional services that do business with Monroe Township.

Gerry Tamburro looked into the eyes of the Monroe Township Residents who were in attendance and told them that he and his running mates never received any donations from developers, Attorneys or Engineering firms that do business with Monroe.  What’s more,  Tamburro’s lie was captured at the video taped forum at the Monroe Township Senior Center.

At the Encore meeting, Chiarella asked the audience of residents to Google “Tamburro, PACs, Pucci and Developers”.  A resident came up to the microphone a short while later and showed the audience that Ken Chiarella was correct and Gerry was not telling the truth.  Tamburro repeated the lie.

Follow the money.  We posted this article a while back about the financial campaign funding documents filed by the local Democrats with the Election Law Enforcement Commission.  Please read it for details.

…and this one.

http://independentsformonroe.com/2015/09/05/monroe-dems-receive-donations-from-professional-service/

When the video of the forum is released we will post it for all to see.

Below are some articles that will shed light on the information that is out there.

http://politickernj.com/2012/04/middlesex-pacs-rife-with-potential-conflicts/

http://independentsformonroe.com/2015/07/11/pucci-tamburro-and-koppels-campaign-donations/

Last night Ken Chiarella was invited to Encore for a forum with the Republican and Democrat candidates for Mayor.  It was well attended and the people of Encore gave us a very warm welcome.

We want to thank the residents of Encore for a great forum.  We are lucky to have them in our greater Monroe township Community.

Tonight is the forum at the Monroe Township Senior Center.  Please come out and ask questions.

Did you know that it is illegal in New Jersey to ask developers for impact fees? The entire state caters to developers. You cannot ask a developer to pay for the impact to the community they are building in. That is an insane law created to protect large developers.

What Monroe could have done, and what we will do, is weigh the impact before giving approval to developers.

Not only was that not done in Monroe, but Tamburro was Chair of the Master Plan committee and changed the Master Plan again and again to allow developers to develop where it was restricted by the Master Plan. The developers buy the property, the Master Plan is changed and the developers build more houses, condos and townhouses.

Then Tamburro and friends claim that their hands are tied because people have a right to develop their private property. They never tell you that they changed the plan to allow that development.

They are also quick to tell us that they can’t ask for impact fees for things like schools which take on the impact through increased enrollment.

If impact fees from developers are illegal, then how could Tamburro and team have asked developers to pay 2 million dollars to offset overspending at the Senior Center?

They get around the law by making it a contribution. The developers bailed out Tamburro and friends by making a “contribution” of 2 million dollars to the Senior Center.

I ask Ward 2 Councilman Tamburro why he never thought to ask his developer friends to donate or “Contribute” money for the overburdened schools. Wouldn’t that be legal? Anyone who thinks that the developers weren’t asked to contribute to the senior center is lying to themselves.

Here are the donations for the Senior Center which was over budget until the developers decided they needed to get rid of 2 million dollars by contributing it to the Senior Center. (Documents)

Please vote for Ken Chiarella for Mayor and Chirag Bhagat and Stanley Edelman for Council on November 3rd.