Local Brigantine resident; Ann Wenitsky was not amused by a recent letter penned by councilman Rick DeLucry last week. Wenitsky wasn’t pleased with Anne Phillips of the Brigantine Taxpayers Association either. Here’s her letter to the editor of BrigantineNOW:
This is in response to Rick DeLucry’s and Anne Phillips’ letters to the editor from last week, regarding the petition to change the form of government.
With all due respect to all involved in the process, there have been certain stumbling blocks that have had to be overcome, which is no reason for pillars of the community to publicly criticize fellow citizens and their efforts.
In addition, there is no proof that reducing the size of the government will lead to corruption and cronyism. In fact, according to the majority of the current Council, the former councils and city managers over the last 20 years are at fault for all of our current woes. So why not return to a more simplified form of government? This alone is a perfect reason to return to a format where elected officials are accountable to the public.
According to DeLucry, if it “was evident on its face” that the petition was invalid, why would the city clerk have a legal duty to review and verify every signature on the petition?
Why would anyone instruct the clerk to perform her legal duty on a petition with “fatal flaws”?
Why was the petition not returned immediately with instructions to correct the deficiency of the circulators’ affidavits?
And lastly, as far as the sufficiency of the form of the question, that will likely be decided in the courts.
Ann Wenitsky
Brigantine, NJ
As I read both Anne’s and Rick’s letters, they were coming to the defense of Lynn Sweeney, the City Clerk who suffered “public criticism” from the pen of Vincent Sera. She was publicly charged by Mr. Sera of some sort of collusion with unnamed others. It appears to me that the City Clerk did an exceedingly thorough job in evaluating the petition’s language and signatures. Should we accept less than that? I assume Ms. Sweeney reviewed the petition in it entirety, fatal flaws and all, so that the petitioners would have a clear picture of ALL of the flaws they needed to correct, not just those on the face of it.
Given that I’m not a “pillar of the community” I feel free to voice my opinion and ask a simple question: If some of the citizens of Brigantine are taking the very serious step to have their government changed by a petition that is openly backed by the mayor, why did this group not do its homework to understand EXACTLY what they needed to do to put forth a valid petition?
Fran Heineman