In Defense of Committeeman Michael Clark

To the Editor:
This is in response to a Spout Off that appeared in the Feb. 12 issue of the Herald. The Spouter accuses Middle Township Committeeman Michael Clark of possibly pressuring our Township Administrator to make an exception for the Middle Township Democratic Club and waive the insurance requirement when using a township facility, in this case the DeVico Center. The accusations against Clark are simply not true.
Three years ago, the Middle Township Democratic Club was faced with the same situation. As club president at that time, I asked Mark Mallett, who was at the time our Township Administrator, if these requirements could possibly be waived as the cost of insurance would burden our organization. It was the opinion of myself and others that since we did not prepare any food at this facility and did not use any sharp objects of any type nor did we allow the distribution or consumption of alcoholic beverages, that we created no more of a liability for the township than anyone walking into any of the township buildings for the purpose of paying their taxes, attending township committee meetings, going to municipal court hearings or for voting purposes. Our request was denied and one of our members was able to obtain the use of a meeting room at the Crest Haven Complex. The county of Cape May did not require that we have any insurance nor did they require that we pay any rent. When we use the DeVico Center we pay rent. Apparently, other organizations that were using the DeVico Center at that time also appealed to township committee for relief of the insurance requirement.
After we had moved our meetings, the township contacted us and said they would waive the insurance requirement since so many of the other organizations had also asked for a waiver. So, we went back to holding our meetings at the DeVico Center.
The Middle Township Democratic Club does not have a lot of members nor does it benefit from a wealthy county political organization offering financial backing, like the Republicans do.
What Mr. Clark did was the same thing that I did three years ago acting as president of the Democratic Club. He also asked if the insurance requirement applied to all of the organizations using the DeVico Center. Apparently, it does.
Members of the Middle Township Democratic Club are taxpayers. Cape May County recognizes this and allows different groups of taxpayers and other citizen groups to use county-owned buildings without requiring any proof of insurance.
Since this conversation between Mr. Clark and the township administrator apparently took place in our Township Hall, I believe that either our mayor or deputy mayor was eavesdropping on the conversation between Mr. Clark and our Township Administrator and are choosing to use their version of this conversation as political fodder.
The eavesdropping and story telling shows the immaturity of one or both of those individuals. I think they both need to do better.
As an organization with little or no funds, we manage to get our candidates elected, such as we recently did with Mr. Clark. No matter what obstacles we face, we will continue to be a force to be reckoned with.
In the coming months, we will be talking about the issues that Middle Township is facing. I hope that our two incumbent Republican Committeemen will be mature enough and up to the task, especially since one is running for re-election this fall. This non-issue that they are trying to bring up should not be one of them. We have bigger fish to fry.