Public Comments From MPHA Meeting

The section 8 problem will never be corrected until the citizens of Middletown elect someone with a spine to stand up to the criminals in the city building. Council’s “not wanting to look back or place blame but only want to look forward” does nothing more than reward failure and cause us to keep making the same mistakes and allowing the same conduct in the city building that destroyed our once fine city. Until we rid ourselves of those that got us into this mess, we can not move forward. A few years ago, I remember Schiavone asking Kohler about the increase in section 8 and was told that council had voted to expand the number of vouchers. When Schiavone questioned that response, Kohler told him that he had just given council the “highlights” of the program and then council have voted to approve the program. Then, as today, the people in the city building just give council the info that will get council the vote “correctly”.

Follow the money. The money skimmed off the block grants, including section 8, the money stolen from the Auto and Gas Fund, the sewer separation fund and others, goes to salaries and benefits for the nearly 400 over-paid under-performing people that get city paychecks. There is only one reason for anyone to get a city paycheck and that is to make Middletown a better or safer place to live or have a business. We are a high crime slum. We are the #1 fastest dying city (i.e. the least desirable place to live or work) in the country (with a population under 100,000). We could get rid of half of the cities paychecks and remain #1 on the Forbes fastest dying list. Ridding ourselves of certain people that work for the city, would improve our standing on the Forbes list and our reputation & image.

HUD has said that we need the vouchers that we have in Middletown. My opinion is that the only way Middletown can get rid of vouchers is by getting more jobs in town. Misappropriating funds that should be repairing our streets, maintaining our parks, opening our pools, separating our sewers and all the other requirements of a city, to pay people to run our business off or keep new ones from coming in is insanity.

Getting jobs to come to a high crime slum (with the wonderful stench downtown) with some of the lowest performing schools in the state, with the least amenities and high taxes is all but impossible.

We must start with the basics and correct problems as we build. We all heard what happened with Lenny Robinson last week. That kind of insanity must stop but council doesn’t want to look back or place blame. So we keep our high rating on the Forbes list and keep our well-deserved image and reputation intact.