BY JACK ZISA

I congratulate Mr. Juliano on assuming the BCDO chairmanship, but I disagree wholeheartedly with his contention that in politics winning is the only thing that matters. With all due respect to Vince Lombardi, winning isn’t what matters in government; serving the needs of the people honestly is what matters and the Democrats in New Jersey and Bergen County have not been serving the needs of the working people.

Mr. Juliano is taking over a party that has excelled at deceit and trickery since the days when Joe Ferriero was chairman. That deceit continued when former Democratic County Executive Dennis McNerney was recently caught lying about Republicans on the internet. The Democrats will tell voters this year that they have been “holding the line on spending,” but in less than five years they increased taxes by almost $50 million and borrowed hundreds of millions more, increased the county payroll and are hiding the county’s true debt costs using borrowing schemes that include the BCIA.

On a cold January night in 2017 the Democratic freeholders tripled the so-called open space tax with no debate and no explanation. Now they have created for themselves a $17 million a year slush fund that has very little to do with open space. That’s more deceit of taxpayers.

Mr. Juliano’s candidates for freeholder and the legislature are forced to run on Gov. Murphy’s extremely liberal platform, which includes using millions of taxpayer dollars to give free legal aid to illegal aliens and to give them free college tuition. Juliano’s team has to support the governor’s edict barring state law enforcement agencies from assisting federal authorities in the apprehension of illegal aliens, while county government reaps $15 million a year from ICE for housing illegal immigrants in the county jail. That’s another form of deceit.

Mr. Juliano and his candidates are in the unenviable position of having to support a state Democratic fiscal record that continues to punish middle class, suburban homeownerswith the highest property taxes in the nation. We will make them explain why they have failed to stand up to Trenton for county residents when it comes to the unequal distribution of state school aid.   All 70 towns in Bergen County get less state school aid than most cities in the state.  The Bergen Democrats have done nothing to fight for Bergen County’s school children, their parents and our local schools. I don’t think that record will go unnoticed by homeowners in the legislative and county elections this year.   I don’t think county residents believe the Democrats are doing a good job trying to lower property taxes.

Mr. Juliano’s team will have to explain why their party – including the governor — lied to people last year about the impact that federal tax form would have on our state taxpayers – and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to turn mandatory property taxes into charitable giving. The truth is out now and instead of paying more in taxes, the average state taxpayer paid $1,200 less this year in federal taxes. Again, more Democratic deceit.

Meanwhile the national economy is at an all-time high, the stock market is breaking records and the nation has achieved record high employment for Blacks and Latinos. The president is protecting our southern border and has Mexico helping us while the Democrats at first denied there was a border crisis, and then tried to make it worse by refusing to finance sensible solutions.

Sooner or later the win-at-all-cost strategy of the Democrats is going to end. The deceit can only last so long. I think this is the year it ends in Bergen County.

Jack Zisa

BCRO Chairman