"I'm just a government worker"..... (05/11/09 10:20am)

If you are going to to walk the neighborhoods trying to drum up support for you re-election, you should  probably NOT bring up a subject  that you are not supportive off.

From a visitor to MyHanoverTownship.com

Len Fariello was ringing door bells in my neighborhood yesterday.

He noticed my son and I had been playing catch, he stated his commitment to our town's youth.  When told him that it was ridiculous that we have only one little league field in town and those fields off Jefferson Rd. should have been in use years ago.

Len Fariello's response: "I'm just a government worker"

Unbelievable!!!

Hanover Township needs better.

Gary Curran

I do agree that that the quote that has been attributed to Mr. Fariello (assuming, for the moment, that it is indeed an actual quote--and also assuming for the moment that it has not been "taken out of context" (like so much, apparently, of what is said in the political arena supposedly often is)--then it is, indeed, not the very best response that could have been made.

You are correct: given the position that Mr. Fariello holds, the buck does, indeed, stop with him (and his fellow committee members).

Having graciously admitted that, I call upon you to be equally as gracious, and to admit that no one--including Mr. Fariello--can be in all places at all times; do all of the many, many tasks that are involved in operating a government the size of Hanover Township's, or, regrettably (to paraphrase an individual who was a fairly good politician in his own right) " . . . please all the people. all of the time."

Unfortunately, and, I would suspect, given your close relationship with one who served in public office for many years, you are especially aware of the fact that the efficient and effective operation of a government requires that those who have been elected to decision-making positions also have the innate ability to be pretty darn good jugglers!

The reality of the matter is that, on an almost daily basis, the demands of "The Wish List" are rather cruelly and coldly juxtaposed up against those dollars (those ever shrinking, in both number and "buying power," dollars!).

To borrow a bit from another old truism, often "One man's gain of a Little League ballpark could be another man's loss of a decent Fire Station."

Those who are in the position that Mr. Fariello is now (and that your husband was for many years) must constantly be asking themselves: What are the Town's needs? What are its priorities? Which of these priorities simply cannot be ignored any longer?

Tough decisions; tough decisions, all. Someone benefits--and smiles. Someone is deprived--and frowns.

It's an age-old battle that has gone on, and on, and on. I was fighting for Little League fields ages and ages ago. I'm glad that some have come along to take the laboring oar from my hands.

But even as much as I truly love fields in which our children can play, I well understand that there are many other people, and many other needs, in a community, and that--being the civilized, intelligent, rationale, and caring beings we are--it is often necessary for us to just take a number . . . and then patiently wait our turn in line.

A bit of digression just now, admittedly, so let me again return to my point:

No one--neither Mr. Fariello nor Mr. Francioli (nor anyone else, for that matter) can "do" all of the many, many tasks that are needed to get all of the work required to keep a government going.

Or should we realistically expect that people who are on the Township Committee are all acutely aware of every single problem; every single need.

Time--and experience--have shown us that the effective, efficient operation of government requires that there be be many able and conscientious people, all of whom are given specific jobs and tasks in many, many different departments or commissions (or what have you), and that it is by far better to allow these people who have received the charge (and hopefully, possess, not merely the expertise, but the needed resources, as well) to actually do the work that they are responsible for doing.

I don't think that what you are saying is that all of the many tasks involved in the operation of Hanover Township should be performed by those who have been elected to the position of Committeeman, but if I have misunderstood what it is that you are saying, and I sand to be corrected, please do not hesitate to do so.

As for me, I feel that the overall interests of the town can best be served and met if the Committeemen do their level best to perform the duties of the specific post to which they have been elected. Put in a slightly different fashion, I do not believe that the interests of the citizenry are best served when Committeemen feel that maybe they ought to do just a little meddling in the internal workings of this department; a bit of sticking one's finger in a dike somewhere else.

I'm sure you'll agree that just seeing to it that they well perform those duties that are listed on the job description of the position to which they were elected is a big enough job, in and of itself.

If that citizen truly does feel that Mr. Fariello is personally responsible for seeing to it that a baseball field is built close by to the neighborhood in which he lives, than I suspect he'll be only too willing to support some of the, ahem, "older folks" in town who feel that Mr. Fariello may also have a personal obligation to see to it that there are several hot tubs installed in convenient places throughout the town.

I gotta tell you, this rheumatism, or arthritis, or whatever is no fun. No fun at all!

Joe P. - 1mwnsyj0 (05/12/09 6:33pm) REPLY

Elections are the time to reaffirm our choices for those we previously elected or if necessary, make changes to reflect our realization that we may have been wrong.

Tom Sutcliffe (05/12/09 11:15pm) REPLY

Hi Joe:

I agree there is no way one person can be in all places, but the comment still stands and it wasn't taken out of context..I don't feel that it was an appropriate answer to the question of the new field that is already built. I am not a sports parent but I feel for their plight the same as everyone else. We are not closing Fire Houses or our EMT units. The building of the new Fire House is directly attached to the Village Project...

I feel that as the "Mayor" and the representative of the committee and township that a better answer to the problem and the question could have been made, just as it always seems to be made during election time. If you campaign on something you should at least see to it that it is done or that it is viable before you start talking about it. Give the people the truth not just what you think they want to hear.

Carole. PS sorry about your problems...its tough getting old. (05/13/09 7:15pm) REPLY

OK I see what you did there.

You took my comparing Lenny and George's very short time on the planning board compared to John's 12 years and made it a negative against John. Then you took Lenny's inability to name one project he favors other than his opus at Whippany Village and turned it into "he's cautious". You don't see the comment under Caroles post as harsh?

I'm glad you are too much of a decent person to name drop so I have to guess that you referenced the thrashing that Maria Florio and Tammy Wagner took on this site without dropping any names. Maybe you were also not mentioning the veiled warning to Lois D. when she didn't fall into lock step on Whippany Village. OR you could be referencing the fairly shoddy treatment that Judy has received while on the committee.

I guess Tom would allow me the bandwidth to go over John's many other qualifications line by line but it's already posted on the site. I remember back to when Howie's not posting on this site meant he was aloof and unwilling to interact with the common man, this couldn't possibly also be true of Lenny now that he has stopped posting here?

He sang the praises of this site when he used it as a favorable forum in the last election. He never asked his supporters to stop the negative attacks on his opponent. Oh wait, that's in the past and we need to move on. There's no value in going negative like calling the previous mayor a fear monger, no it was an alarmist wasn't it. George said all HT needed was a good plan for the future. IF that is true, we can continue to have 2 members with 18 months combined planning experience or we can add a successful planner with experience in managing large budgets and experience in dealing with multi-national corporations.

Gabriel (05/12/09 12:27am) REPLY

Gabriel, I am not a man. I am a woman. A fairly outspoken woman myself (although the moderator on this site prefers to silence my voice on this site over and over because I don't support his preferred candidates.)

I'm just sick and tired of the Franciolis and their vindictive diatribes. As I posted once (in a post that was removed), if the Franciolis were so concerned with the current state of the Township, Mr. Francioli wouldn't have walked away from his seat on the council. Things didn't go his way, so he quit........and now all we read from him and his wife are attacks on the remaining members.

CK (05/11/09 11:20pm) REPLY

In regard to your comment about your previous posts not appearing, I would point out that in all 3 cases, they were not signed. You were responding to individual that that had signed their messages and at that time the rule was not to post unsigned rebuttals

Your most recent posts were not signed either. When posts are submitted unsigned, I simply add the userid to the end of the post which provides the visitors some degree of traceability to a user.

Your 3 previous posts now appear on the site with your userid.

SPONSOR (05/12/09 8:03am) REPLY