There is a "Point" For Everyone!

Gotta admit...lots of opinions on my posts. Some are EXCELLENT! Some not so much.
Need to comment on a few:
Yes, I was dragged into becoming a blowhard and I apologize. I received a couple of comments that were just plain lies...like I recently had a car repossessed and I am in financial trouble. Where do these people come from?
I am too old to run for office, so does that mean that I shouldn't offer opinions or suggestions based on my experience?
In oder to effect real change, first people have to realize there is a problem. That is the point of the articles.
There is a lot of cynicism out there. That is not productive.
If you criticize our President, you are a racist. If you criticize Bill Clinton, you are part of a right wing conspiracy. If you criticize Israel, you are an anti-Semite. If you criticize Ronald Reagan, you are a socialist and anti-octogenarian. If you criticize Hillary Clinton you are anti-woman. If you criticize the gay lifestyle, you are a homophobe. If you criticize a Muslim, you are anti-Muslim. Something is wrong with this picture!
I am confused about the criticism of Susan Rodgers. If I understand the view expressed, she was able to convince a majority of Council to vote to purposely underestimate the water and sewer charges and take money from another account to pay the real cost so there wouldn't be a hike in tax rates? Too many people would have to be involved in such a conspiracy for it to work. It just does not make sense to me.
Probationary employees are probably evaluated. But, senior personnel are not. In any case, their salaries are not tied to merit, and there is no accountability in job performance.
The Civil Service System is antiquated. It was originated in 1908, and was designed to eradicate cronyism in public service. It has developed into a job protection system, even for the incompetent. Years ago civil servants were underpaid. Poor salaries were, in part, a direct result of the fact that their salaries were tied to the tax rate. To level the playing field, civil servants were given extravagant pensions and benefits and ultra safe job protection. In today's world, civil servants are paid well into six-figure salaries, and have retained their pensions and benefits. NJ and many towns within the state are struggling to meet the negotiated obligations. Furthermore, when Point Pleasant was a sleepy little Borough with a tiny little budget, things were manageable. Today, the Borough has a budget counted in the tens of millions. The job of running the Borough has grown beyond the ability of the Council to manage operations. Yet, we have unqualified personnel trying to manage a complex organization with skills that date back before the advent computers. The Civil Service System predates many laws that have been passed to protect employees from unfair discharge, unfair labor practices, etc. I am not suggesting that the Borough not have policies to prevent patronage, and the negotiated agreements have  protections built into them. It is time for the Civil Service System in Point to go...what are all the other 400 Towns and Boroughs not under Civil Service doing? Certainly you are not suggesting to me that they all change their staffs in a willy-nilly fashion.
Someone asked for facts and to stick to them. That's fair. But, what facts does anyone need beyond the fact that we have a team of trained consultants that can't make sense of the finances of the Borough...and can't even find all the money that is supposed to be there!
I have tried over and over again to get the Borough Council to plan strategically. There are mounds of literature on the topic of strategic planning. Organizations from small businesses to the very largest corporations conduct yearly strategic planning workshops. If the Council were to conduct a startegic planning session, all of the ills and miscues would come up, a plan for corrective action would be set up and there would be a established a logical and agreed upon progression toward goals that have been set. The endless chain of politicization of every decision would be broken. Think of it this way...A plan for the future is agreed upon, set in writing and widely distributed. Let's suppose that a different majority is elected; do you suppose that they could simply just chuck the strategic plan? I do not think so...they would have a lot of explaining to do. The new Council certainly could modify the plan, but that would have to undergo the same kind of planning. In fact, continual updates of the plan is necessary. Such an approach would also guide the Council in its actions...like buying valuable property and then trying to figure out what to do with it! A professor colleague of mine at Columbia, Len Goldstein, wrote a book on strategic planning entitled, "Plan or Die"...a perfect title for an important organizational undertaking.
A Board of Directors of mine had no financial expertise, and little time to review complex financial statements. So, I devised for them a simple financial review and oversight mechanism that they saw each month.
In the left column was the budget by line item, including accounts receivable and accounts payable. The next column was receipts and expenditures for the month. The next column was the percentage of receipts and expenditures (=/-). The final column was the cumulative receipts and expenditures to date. At a glance any Board member could easily see how receipts and expenditures compared to budget projections. If an account was falling short of projections, the Board knew immediately (think property tax collections in the Borough's case), and conversely if no expenditures had occurred , there had to be a reason. For example, a Board member once noted that the insurance line item had been completely exhausted in the first quarter of the year and wanted to know why. I explained that we were able to obtain a 10% reduction in the insurance premium if we paid the bill in one lump sum...I was thanked for saving the organization a sizable amount of money. This approach made the Board's oversight responsibility very easy. I also presented to the Board a copy of the check ledger. They saw every single check that had been written...to whom and for how much.
I suggest that a planning session could result in ideas like this one being talked about and employed. No Board that I ever worked for could say that they didn't know at all times where the money was or and how it was being handled. In fact, the Board's I worked for were confident that the finances were in order, because they trusted but verified!
Albert Einstein is attributed with the quote..."The definition of pure lunacy is doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results!" I believe this quote applies to our Council.
There is a "Point" for everyone..help me get there by making our observations better known by a wider circle of people.
What do you think?