Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage: His idea saves city a whopping $750!

"E-NOUGH" OF THAT
Should Hillside's sister city laud its Mayor for his e-mail scheme?

Give Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage and the Union County Democratic political machine points for consistency, at least. We can always count on them to crow long and loud about their supposed accomplishments. The latest in Hillside's sister city is the "e-nitiative," an executive order which requires all interoffice memos to be sent via email, thereby sparing up to a ream of paper per day.

The mayor has gotten major press in the Star-Ledger and the Gazette Leader on his "green" idea which he says could save taxpayers up to $750 per year. Sounds good, yes? Well, not really. Compare that $750 to the thousands of taxpayer dollars spent every year in the City of Elizabeth on dubious expenses such as:

x Urban League of Union County $15,520;

x In Town Motor Lodge $4,675;

x Internal Intelligence Service $4,900;

x Shoor DePalma to "identify problems" $6,425;

x Valencia Restaurant for dinner meeting $2,265 and

x Accomodations for the League of Municipalities at the TRUMP PLAZA AND HOTEL $13,743!

Once again we are asked to pay attention to the sound-and-light show out in front and ignore the machinations behind the screen. The "e-initiative" is also an excellent smokescreen to use when politicians do not want to leave paper trails and want to stop people like the "Union County Reporter", Vincent Lehotsky, from discovering their unrecycled memos which end up in the dumpsters.

Does that $750 savings still sound good to you?