by Joseph A. Lypowy 12/07

   Recently, outgoing Toms River Mayor of Toms Paul Brush and Mayor Elect Tom Kelaher made a joint announcement that there would be an 8% tax increase in the 2008. This year end booby-prize for the taxpayers follows several years of record exorbitant tax increases and spending in town hall. What makes this last announcement more of a bitter pill to swallow is, that the mayor and council made announcements prior to election time that there would be no increase this coming year. It seems to me that the taxpayers and voters of Toms River have been deceived one more time with election time gimmicks.
   Can Brush and Kelaher say they did not know, when they and there parties ran on a platform of no tax increases? The answer to that would be no, because during the last election Robert K. Haelig and Bob Silva, both members of a group called Traditional Republicans for Reform and Accountability, held a press conference predicting the tax increases. Haelig and Silva had reviewed the budget and came to the conclusion, that the figures did not add up and contained smoke and mirrors gimmicks. Haelig and Silva were both ignored at the time, but the recent tax increase announcements prove they were right.
   Sleight of hand parlor tricks are nothing new for Toms River taxpayers in the last few years. Three years ago Mayor Brush ran as a reform Independent promising to save millions of Dollars with his CPA experience. Instead, after receiving stealth hard core democrat money in his campaign, he flip-flopped back to the Democratic Party after the election. Then after promising millions in savings, precided over the largest tax increase in township history. That year, when the Democrats and Republicans realized they had a political stalemate between the mayor and council, they then decided to work together in a bipartisan plunder of taxpayer money with an orgy of political appointments and pay offs. After that years 22% tax increase, the politicians on both sides of the isle said it was a one time anomaly due to the change of government. Well now that one time anomaly has turned into a four year long anomaly of record spending.
According to a website called InflationData.com, the rate of inflation from the year 2000 to present has been about 3% annually. The Toms River tax increases from 2004 to 2008 have been anywhere between 3 to 7 times the rate of inflation. Obviously there is something wrong.