Jim Grenafege

Middletown Township (Monmouth County, NJ): “F.E.M.A. has failed Middletown residents categorically,” Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege said.

F.E.M.A. offered an informational session to the public on July 16 at Croydon Hall. In a conversation with a F.E.M.A. representative, Grenafege discovered there would not be a question-and-answer portion, similar to the kind held during an identical event in Keansburg. “I was told it wasn’t necessary,” Grenafege said. “So I said that, very often in a public forum, questions are asked that can be very helpful to the entire group. So it sounds to me like the people in Middletown are not as important to F.E.M.A. as residents in neighboring towns.”

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): It’s more of the same, according to Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege.

According to Grenafege, a retired career consultant, the Republican Majority on the Township Committee has resorted to gross inaccuracies in its June 2008 edition.

“One of the things is that it isn’t up to date about this newsletter is the Standard and Poor’s AA rating the township had done about four years ago,” Grenafege said. “Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger is just resting on the township’s past laurels. There is nothing new by way of accomplishments in the Mayor’s tenure but Mr. Scharfenberger is trying to take historical information and take ownership of it to make himself look better.”

Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh, a 12-year school board member, said, “Mayor Scharfenberger, in this recent Middletown Matters, fails to disclose that, for the past 20 years, the current and previous GOP administrations in town have used deferred school taxes to balance this township’s budget and make it look better than it actually is.”