Lower Group Doesn’t Speak for All

To The Editor:
There is an organization in my town that calls itself the Lower Township Taxpayers’ Association. They have an active membership of about 10 -15 people. That does not represent the 23,000 residents of Lower Township.
It doesn’t even represent the approximate 8,000 residents of Villas.
The current president of this association, Ed Butler, has made some outlandish and untrue statements. At a township meeting he stated that the school teachers are getting rich on his money, the kids aren’t learning anything and the school board is a farce. He knows this because he went to a meeting of the school board.
He has never apologized for this remark nor have I heard Mayor Michael Beck refute his statement.
The group also now claims to speak for the ratepayers of the Lower Township MUA. Who gave them get the authority to make that claim? I’m a taxpayer and a ratepayer and they don’t speak for me at any time.
Two years ago, Mike Beck won the Villas section of Lower Township by a 3 to 1 majority. This past November, Janet Pitts, a former president of the Lower Township Taxpayers’ Association, with the support of Mayor Beck, lost her bid for a seat on council in the First Ward, which is in Villas. So much for this group representing the taxpayers of Villas, let alone all of Lower Township.
I would like to make two suggestions to this club:
First: change your name so it correctly reflects the size of your membership.
Second: stop and think about who really represents the taxpayers of Lower Township. The results of last November’s election should make it very clear.
Two of the three members running for council, incumbent Councilman Douglas and newly elected Councilman Simonson, had no opposition. The third member, incumbent Councilman Conrad, won the First Ward handily.
I’d say the taxpayers in my town have made their feelings very clear. Council, not the Taxpayers Association, speaks for the residents of Lower Township.
I know many people who have retired from jobs in the Philadelphia area and moved down here to Lower Township. I have yet to meet one person who grew up, worked and raised a family in Lower Township and then moved up to the Philadelphia area to retire. I guess Lower Township is not such a bad place to live after all.
So I ask, the “Gang of Ten,” since they find fault with almost everything Council does or tries to do, they find fault with almost every Lower Township department including Public Works and Police, and they find fault with our schools and taxes, why are they still here? Why don’t they leave my town if they find it so abhorrent (that means repugnant which means distasteful)?
However, I am proud to say our county, of which Lower Township is a part, has the lowest taxes in the State of New Jersey.
Are they entitled to their opinion? Yes, but since they hardly ever offer positive solutions to problems, they lose credibility and very few people take them seriously.
Why am I making this statement? Because here is where they, the “Jack-in-the-Box” group, make their consistently negative feelings known and it is here that they know they will get “ink” from the one newspaper that will print almost everything and anything they say.
I could once again attend their meetings to make my case but since they claim to represent approximately 23,000 people and since their meetings are poorly attended, it would be a waste of my time.
JACK SPARKS
North Cape May
(ED. NOTE: The author is a former Lower Township mayor.)