Sunday, February 17, 2008

Burlington City Cut Police OT But Create New Position


I was able to confirm today, that Burlington City is cutting Police Overtime by $68K and yet they created a new position for a friend of Mayor Fazzone. 

The salary is rumored to be at least $60K for John Alexander as Director of Public Planning. With all of the gang and drug  problems plaguing the City, you have to wonder where the priorities of the Mayor and Council are.

The picture to the right, is the mayor's answer to saving money in the B.C. police budget. The new cars are compact and get great gas mileage.

The following is the E-mail I received this past week and would not post until I was able to confirm it and is rather sobering in content.

"Dear Edgewater Park Reporter,

I was in Doc's Pub the other day and heard some interesting information. Perhaps you can shed some light on it.
The new mayor of Burlington City, Jim Fazzone and his elected running mates, appointed and approved the hiring of Fazzone's long time friend John Alexander of Edgewater Park. Alexander will be the Director of Public Planning with an annual salary rumored to be $60,000 annually. At the same time Fazzone et al. budget cuts to our police department's overtime reported to be around $68,000. Burlington City has had numerous shootings and even double shootings recently in the Yorkshire section. Yet this new administration would rather hire "event planners" rather than solve crimes, evidently even shootings and homicides. Fazzone also hired a new administrator while keeping on the previous administrator, Robin Snodgrass, as assistant administrator, a position that had not previously existed under Snodgrass' management. We can only hope the new mayor doesn't have too many more friends that he owes jobs to because they gave him  jobs in the past. I heard that Alexander previously hired Fazzone for a school position in E.P.. I guess he could cut our Fire Departments' appropriations too if he needs more money for his cronies' salaries. Where does it end? There is no concern anymore by politicians for public opinion even regarding the appearance of inappropriate or unethical decision making or hiring practices. 

Sincerely, 
A Public Safety Volunteer from the B.C.F.D."

The Edgewater Park Reporter

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has to make you wonder where peoples priorities are. If they can't take care of the drug and gang problems in Burlington City then they don't need to worry about having an events planner because who the heck will want to go to Burlington City.

Tell the police dept. not to worry because once the crime is so out of hand and attendence is low at the "events" planned in Burlington they'll end up needing to fire their new events planner and his salary will be available again for the police.

In a way it sounds like Edgewater, Willingboro, Beverly and Burlington City are all going down the same path. A path to destruction and ruin.

Anonymous said...

Hey, How come the BCT doesn't know any of this crap? Or do they and choose not to print it? I may just email the BCT the blog address so they can get better leads for stories because they don't seem to have a clue what's happening in the towns they are supposed to be covering. Plus, then they could confirm things because as they say,"There is always two sides to a story and then there's the truth."
But this blog at least could expose some of the crap that is usually kept from the public and lead to more open and honest governments even if it's at the small town level; but you got to start somewhere.

Anonymous said...

So is Bill Jenkins a friend of Mayor Fazzone's too? What is his wife's name? Is it Bonnie? Why does that sound so familiar?