Q: Where was the Dave Mayer Team?

Q:  Where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A:  Putting Politics Above Gloucester Township Progress

While Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton has fulfilled her promise over the last 3 years to serve Gloucester Township as its full-time mayor, instituting an open-door policy to meet the needs of the town's residents, her opponents in this November's election have been notably absent from the community or have worked actively against residents to further their own financial and political agendas.  Some members of the team - Dave Mayer to be specific - rarely even bothered showing up at council meetings unless it was in a political fashion.

Q:  When Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton presented numerous options to turn the GEMS landfill into a revenue-generating Township asset, where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A:  Hiding behind closed doors to protect their and their allies' interests at the expense of Township Residents.

Wrote the Courier Post (5-23-09):

"On Monday, a township council subcommittee held a closed-door meeting to discuss three proposals to turn the hazardous Superfund site into a money-making solar-power station...Government officials should not be allowed to be totally off the record, not when they are supposedly conducting the people's business...Transparency will ensure that [Council President Glen] Bianchini and council members are putting the interests of their constituents first, not trying to develop a plan to reward their political allies and contributors."

Q:  When Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton presented options for the Nike Base sale which would have provided revenue to keep the Township's tax rate stable, where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A:  They turned away $3 million cash sale and council entered into an agreement with Dave Mayer's client to sell ½ the Nike Base for $1.2 million. Mayer's client reneged on the deal and the Township only received the amount of the deposit for default:  $120,000 - costing residents a minimum of $1 million that would have been applied for tax relief.

Q:  When Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton went to Trenton and stood beside other NJ mayors calling on Governor Corzine to address the burden unfunded mandates and decreased state aid caused on municipalities, where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A.  Silent.  They refused to ever address the situation on behalf of their constituency with the head of their own party. 

Q:  When Cindy Rau-Hatton learned that the Army wanted to put a reserve training base near residents homes despite no public hearing and with the background documents housed in libraries out of town or out of county, where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A:  Rather than act as responsible elected officials, Hutchison and Schmidt sat on the information before running to their campaign to make it an election-year issue.  When the public hearing on the environmental report with the Army was held, Hutchison and Schmidt remained silent.  In a follow-up meeting on-the-record, Hutchison admitted he never even read the report. What's worse, while the members of the council knew of the proposal, the Mayer Team and their party collected over $13,000 in campaign contributions from the engineer hired by the Army to do the water and sewer line for the property.

Q:  When Mayor Cindy Rau-Hatton worked to construct the Shoppes at Cross Keys and create 400 new jobs, where was the Dave Mayer Team?

A:  Three days after elected mayor, Cindy Rau-Hatton met with the developer to fast track the development.  No member of the sitting council, including Dan Hutchison and Frank Schmidt, bothered to do so.

When it come to addressing vital issues facing Gloucester Township, the Dave Mayer Team opts for one of two options - block or ignore - before politicizing at the expense of township residents. Through their stalemating and inaction, council has chosen to allow our families to foot the bill for their ineffectiveness and political posturing, and denied the township initiatives that ultimately would have helped lower the tax rate.