Weekly Update – February 20, 2010
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION: IMPORTANT ATLANTIC COUNTY FREEHOLDER HEARING TOMORROW/TUESDAY!!! SEE #2 BELOW!!!
1. LAST CALL!!! MEET PAUL MULSHINE WINE & CHEESE: Sunday, February 21 from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm at the Carisbrooke Inn, Little Rock Avenue Beach Block, Ventnor, NJ. Read the latest Newark Star Ledger column by our guest speaker at: http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/index.html. Then meet him and us for wine and cheese on Sunday, February 21 from 2:30 PM to Order your tickets now $75 each. $100 couple. If you cannot make such a generous gift, please do what you can to sell a ticket to someone who can. Right now, Liberty and Prosperity is only strong enough to annoy the people in South Jersey who are destroying our country. But if we sell just 50 more tickets, we will be strong enough to make some real changes. I am calling everyone I know and asking them to buy a ticket and come. If you feel uncomfortable about calling someone you know, please contact me, and I will be happy to make the call. Thanks.
2. IMPORTANT HEARING TOMORROW (TUESDAY), FEBRUARY 16 at 7PM at Atlantic Cape Community College (Walter Edge Auditorium), Mays Landing. Why is hearing this so important?
a. The same Wall Street crowd and the politicians they put in office want Atlantic County taxpayers to bail them out AGAIN! The Atlantic County Board of Freeholders want to hear what taxpayers have to say!
b. In the 1990?s, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) borrowed $86 million to build a trash incinerator that never got built. Most of the borrowed money was wasted.
c. County government refused to guarantee that loan to get a lower interest rate because then County Executive Dick Squires thought the plan was too risky. The investors who loaned this $86 million to the ACUA got high tax-free returns because of the extra risk. They knew if the project failed, Atlantic County taxpayers had no legal or moral obligation to pay them back!
d. In 1998, the ACUA went broke. At that time, most (but not all) Atlantic County freeholders bailed out the ACUA by giving it a trash dumping monopoly to pay the debt. Every piece of trash in the county, whether picked up by local governments or private contractors now had to be dumped with the ACUA.
e. When the ACUA had a monopoly, it charged up to $120 per ton to handle garbage?even when it shipped the trash elsewhere for a fraction of that amount. This caused private business and every property taxpayer to pay a lot more!
f. A few years later, the Federal Courts threw out the ACUA monopoly because Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives only Congress the power to restrict or regulate interstate commerce.
g. As soon as the ACUA lost its monopoly, it dropped its rates from $120 per ton to $40 to $60 per ton. Even so, 9 western towns pay even less by dumping their garbage elsewhere.
h. Thanks to new pro-government, pro-Wall Street, and anti-liberty judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, the ACUA thinks its trash monopoly is now legal.
i. The ACUA now wants the Atlantic County Freeholders to again give it a monopoly on trash dumping in Atlantic County so it can raise rates, and pay back the $55 million that remains on the original $86 million debt from the 1990?s.
j. Atlantic County taxpayers have no legal or moral obligation to pay any of that debt.
k. If the freeholders refuse to pay, the ACUA will default on its obligation to bondholders. However, regular ACUA operations will not be affected. County government can then do a ?Donald Trump? and pay back the debt at pennies on the dollar.
l. If the bonds default, some Wall Street investors will lose money. They may demand a criminal investigation how most of the $86 million in borrowed money disappeared.
m. Certain Atlantic County politicians want county taxpayers to pay the full debt, and cover up any wrongdoing. Who are they representing? Certainly not Atlantic County taxpayers!
n. The head of the ACUA urged all ACUA employees to bring their families and pack the meeting on Tuesday. I urge you to attend so that taxpayers are also heard! The meeting is Tuesday, February 16 at 7PM. Walter Edge Auditorium, Atlantic Cape Community College, Route 322, Mays Landing, NJ. For more background information, see Seth Grossman articles on the ACUA and Republican Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson at http://www.libertyandprosperity.org/…article&id=536 and http://www.shorenewstoday.com/news.php?id=6712.
3. Don?t let Senator Whelan and other legislators take away power of the people! Read full Seth Grossman published last week in the Current and Gazette newspapers in Atlantic and Cape May Counties: http://www.shorenewstoday.com/news.php?id=7220 or http://www.libertyandprosperity.org.
4. Will Next Generation (Next-Gen) Aviation Park in Atlantic County be the next “public-private partnership” boondoggle? See this week’s Liberty and Prosperity column in the Current-Gazette Newspapers of Atlantic and Cape May County at: http://www.shorenewstoday.com/news.php?id=7341.
“Liberty and Prosperity 1776, Inc. is a non-profit, education organization. We are registered and recognized by both the State of New Jersey and the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity. Our mission is to learn and teach why ‘Liberty and Prosperity’, New Jersey’s motto since 1776, is still true and relevant today — and how Americans can again be free and effective citizens.”
MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS: Voting Members: $60 dues, Attend 3 business meetings per year, Work on one board approved project per year. Non-Voting Members: $30 per year, not attendance or volunteer requirements
Seth Grossman, Executive Director, www.libertyandprosperity.org,
453 Shore Road, Somers Point, NJ 08244,
sethgrossman49@gmail.com
Tel. 609-927-7333.