Letters
Marlboro Youth Football Association will give all children a chance

The Marlboro Youth Foot-ball Association allows all kids to play football, many of whom cannot play Pop Warner due to size.

We simply provide an opportunity for kids of all sizes to enjoy and benefit from the great game of football. Paul Schlaflin’s letter printed in the News Tran-script on Feb. 8, “New Youth Football League Would Not Have Local Ties,” is short on facts.

But Mr. Schlaflin cannot be expected to know very much information since he hasn’t been involved in Marlboro Pop Warner (MPW) for years, and knows little of our organization.

All his questions would be answered if he visited our Web site, or called our members for information. Yet, he has emerged as the de facto spokesperson of MPW.

He seeks his 15 minutes of fame by referring to the hard-working people of our organization as a small group of malcontents, and saying in a crude e-mail to me that we’ll be competing for resources with MPW.

We do not want MPW resources, and have not asked for any. These malcontents he speaks of are good, decent, hard-working people ranging from blue-collar workers to nurses, dentists and corporate executives.

As for our organization, we are providing NFL-affiliated Spring Flag Football for kids 6-14, and expect over 150 participants.

Kids of all sizes can play fall tackle with us, and we’ll be playing actual middle school teams. We believe this is a first in Monmouth County.

Our program will serve as a “feeder” for the varsity program, and has been welcomed by the high school administration, including the head coach.

We already have more than enough kids committed to our program to field the three teams planned for fall 2006 tackle.

We don’t take uniform or equipment deposits or work bonds, and do not have any mandatory fundraising. We can trust our families to give back equipment, to help as much as possible, and we will never ask any of our kids to stand in front of a store shaking a cup asking for handouts. Mr. Schlaflin, can Marlboro Pop Warner say the same?

I am proud to stand with the so-called small group of malcontents, bringing quality youth football to all the kids in Marl-boro and “building character, one child at a time.”

Joe Sparacio

president

Marlboro Youth

Football Association

Marlboro

One man’s scenario for a sale of change in government

Once again a political e-mail has suspiciously wound up in the wrong hands. However, instead of the offices of the News Transcript, this time it was mistakenly sent to me. It appears to be the very first draft of a script. I believe it was meant to accompany the petition being circulated regarding the possible change of government in Manalapan.

If you have already been approached by someone asking you to sign this petition, we are well aware that it has subsequently undergone a great many revisions and is probably no longer being used. The misdirected e-mail I received reads as follows:

“Please be sure to read this exactly as written when you go door to door with our petition.

“Hello, my name is (please insert the name of the party lackey who will be taking this petition around the neighborhood). Would you like to support a coup in Manalapan to nullify prior elections because the Republicans failed at the polls last November?

“It seems that plans to make either Mr. Locricchio or Mr. Lucas the next mayor of Manalapan suffered a severe setback last year, when our political campaign resulted in the defeat of our two ‘spectacularly unqualified’ candidates, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Torregrossa. We are sure that you are as upset about all this as we are. Therefore, we are passing around this petition which would set aside, for purely political reasons, last year’s election.

“We are circulating this petition because we firmly believe that Manal-apan’s mayor should be elected by you, the people, and not appointed by the Township Committee. We would feel this way even if we had won the election in November. (It is extremely critical that you refrain from laughing at this point or you will lose all credibility) Our latest contradictory comment about this petition states that the new mayor would be a very weak one. So in effect, we will simply add another committeeman for no apparent reason, other than to charge you, the taxpayer, tens of thousands of dollars for a special election. But let’s keep our eye on the ball. You will get to vote for the mayor. This is critical. Do not make me explain this to you any further because my head is starting to hurt.

“Please do not let any feeling of sympathy for newly elected Democrats Anthony Gennaro and Michelle Roth affect your decision to sign this petition. Should we somehow get enough signatures to have this ridiculous thing on the ballot and then somehow get you to vote for our slate of candidates, Mr. Gennaro and Mrs. Roth would not get to serve their full three-year terms even though they were victorious in the last election. How great is this? We get to reverse an election and kick them out. In any event, we are sure that they will be very comfortable placing their lives on hold again to run another political campaign for the three-year term which they had already won.

“Would you please sign this petition immediately so that we can nullify your votes from last year and place this very important petition on the ballot?”

Larry Roth

Manalapan

Marlboro campaign information tells a shocking story

Residents know that the cost of government keeps climbing from a simple glimpse of their tax bill. Marlboro’s Kleinberg Team has hiked our taxes every year they’ve been in office to the highest levels in Marlboro history.

But what of the price of government? True to form, the Kleinberg Team has set new records in spending money buying the last municipal election. Shockingly, the Kleinberg Team had spent $92,054 in barely squeaking out a narrow victory over the Reform Democrats last Novem-ber. With a budget of $50,275, the Democrats were outspent nearly 2 to 1 and still almost won.

With a narrow vote difference, it’s clear that the Republican spending frenzy made a big difference in the election. To truly understand the Kleinberg Team’s outlandish spending, they spent more than it costs for a four-year degree at Rutgers ($72,000 according to the university’s Web site).

More ominous is the source of the funding — 54 percent of their money spent came from a single source — as reported in the News Transcript, by Councilman Steven Rosenthal. Without a wealthy candidate’s funding, the Repub-licans only raised $42,363 — an amount that would have placed the Republicans and Democrats on comparable footing in getting their messages out.

Any candidate is free to spend their own money to get themselves elected and this commentary is not “sour grapes.”

But what is troubling in this revelation of rampant spending is that by deciding to run as a combined team with Jeff Cantor and Rosa Tragni, Rosenthal not only bought himself a council seat, he bought them seats as well and thus total control over our government. Clearly Cantor and Tragni owe their seats to Rosenthal.

It’s a shame that voters didn’t find out until after the election about the Klein-berg Team’s unusual approach to campaign finance. But we know about it now. Clearly Robert Kleinberg and his Klein-berg Team are not reformers.

With the instinct to spend so much money to win the election, is it any wonder why the Kleinberg Team is not hesitant to spend our money? Taxes have risen and will continue to rise at the hands of the profligate spending Klein-berg Team.

Witness, for example, the Kleinberg Team’s recent 5-0 decision to increase recreation department fees, 5-0 decision to raise the bulk garbage fees, and another 5-0 decision to use the very deferred school taxes they campaigned would bankrupt the township if used.

All this while spending tens of thousands of dollars refurbishing the municipal offices while taxes have skyrocketed and we are facing a current budget deficit.

Perhaps the suggestion raised in the Feb. 1 editorial to limit the overall amount a campaign may spend should be examined. This will allow the average resident the ability to run for office, thus enabling he or she to make a difference in Marlboro’s future.

Steven P. Sukel

chairman

Reform Democratic Club

of Marlboro

Marlboro

Keep a watchful eye on the paper, not school instruction

Greg Bean’s Feb. 8 column (“Schools Get an F in Teaching Literacy”) is right on the mark, but only on one point. Literacy rates in our schools are unacceptably low. Schools need desperately to get back to the basics. After sufficiently driving home that point, Mr. Bean’s argument, much that it was, gets thin. Very thin. Does he truly believe that once literacy rates get back up to par (yes, I’m an optimist and yes, I believe it will happen) that students will flock to purchase the New Transcript, or any other publication for that matter? Better hold off on that big paper and ink purchase.

Equating a drop in readership directly to a drop in literacy rates in our schools is short sighted, at best. He states, “We may have been losing our readership because people, particularly young people, simply can’t read or understand our product.”

Did it ever occur to Mr. Bean that maybe, just maybe, the readers do in fact understand the “product” but that they simply don’t like it? Attempts to make your publication “more attractive, more colorful, more hip, more interactive and reader friendly” is simply a move toward “dumbing-down” the “product.” That is insulting.

While the column is an opinion piece, that shouldn’t excuse Mr. Bean from presenting all possibilities for a decline in readership. Internet anyone? Twenty-four-hour cable news? News updates by the minute on our cell phones? Do you think this may possibly have some impact on readership?

Apparently Mr. Bean doesn’t think so as none of these were deserving of a mention in his column. Which brings us to perhaps another possibility as to why readership is down. Many “news” services, A.P., Reuters, etc., simply do not present the facts, free from the writer’s bias. That does not go unnoticed. When I open one of the daily papers I read, I want to see who, what, when and where. Save the opinions for the opinion page. As Mr. Bean acknowledges, newspapers are products, and as with all products, they are subject to the laws of supply and demand. If you want to keep demand there, you had better improve what you are supplying.

So while the educational establishments should get back to basics, you and your colleagues would do well to get back to basics yourselves. Remember, a newspaper should be “news” printed on “paper.” Period.

William C. Longo

Freehold Township

Improvements needed now at Union Hill Road location

The News Transcript reported two pedestrian accidents in the vicinity of the Union Hill Road park-and-ride since the beginning of the winter of 2005-06. The traffic signal approval for the Union Hill Road-Cambridge (Home Depot) shopping center is overdue, but welcome news. Other major improvements to the Union Hill Road park-and-ride facility are in the planning stage. They cannot happen soon enough.

This being said — the absence of street lamps on Union Hill Road for the 500-yard length of the south side park-and-ride — where there are four lanes of traffic — is critically dangerous. New GPU street lamps can and should be installed on Union Hill Road ASAP. Waiting for the official engineering design of the Union Hill Road park-and-ride lot is wrong and irresponsible. Commuters are in harm’s way daily. If you wait, it may be too late.

Currently the lighting within the Union Hill Road park-and-ride lot shines from the extreme south side of the lot in the direction of the Union Hill Road roadway and blinds the motorists like the setting sun — though ironically, it fails to illuminate Union Hill Road. This makes it even more difficult for the drivers to see the blacked-out pedestrians crossing from the Union Hill Road park-and-ride lot to one of the three other park-and-ride lots on the north side of Union Hill Road — in the Home Depot or the park-and-ride lot at the park.

Mayor Robert Kleinberg and Marlboro Township Council, this message is for you: I urge you to prevent a future tragedy and light Union Hill Road with street lamps immediately.

Lloyd Stone

Manalapan

News Transcript article brings club to attention of people

Sharon Leff’s article about the Holland America Club in the Jan. 25 issue of the News Transcript generated a great deal of interest among Dutch people in Central Jersey. We now have 46 members who originally come from just about all 12 provinces in Holland.

We look forward to enlisting even more Dutch people. Current members and couples are all from Holland, or at least one of the spouses is.

We are pleased that we have found a permanent meeting place in the Colts Neck library, which is located in the town complex on Cedar Drive in Colts Neck. Meetings will take place on the last Saturday of every month at 2 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 25. New members should contact me at (732) 294-7187 for further details.

Arnold van Ruitenbeek

Freehold Township