Let voters decide on Choi raise in Edison
Will Mayor Jun Choi and his four council cronies ever get it? In three years, we have seen Choi enjoy a 35 percent tax increase, the use of $6 million in capital financing, and have access to large surpluses in the municipal and the sewer budgets. You wouldn't know that this spending binge comes from the same administration that repeatedly and disingenuously cried "deficit" and announced that this town was near bankruptcy. Truth be told, the only deficit in Edison is where it always was in this oneparty town: in the taxpayers' pockets. Tax and Spend! Tax and Spend!

Edison is like Wall Street investment bankers without checks and balances. When left unchecked, taxes rise and debt is created, the difference being only the rich and greedy get hurt on Wall Street —unless, of course, government steps in and decides that we, the taxpayers, should override the free market and pay for their lack of checks and balances and dubious decision-making.

Sound familiar? Same thing just happened with Choi's $26,000 — or 53 percent — raise he just gave himself. Choi knew the salary before he took office, and for someone who calls himself a reformer, shouldn't he just have put the decision in the hands of the voters of Edison? Just like the free market weeds out waste and inefficiency, so would the voters of Edison. But, we never were given the chance.

So, to the four Choi council members who supported and approved this raise for Choi, why didn't you just restore democracy in Edison and let the voters decide? Then again, this is the same four who voted for the Redevelopment Agency, which can circumvent the voters and obligate us to hundreds of millions in debt, not to mention a $500,000 price tag to get it going.

The free market, without government intervention, rewards the rest of us paying bills. As we are seeing, lower gas prices, prices of homes falling to levels that people can now afford, people will now have to qualify for a mortgage, foreigners and terrorists have lost billions, and government will have to tighten its spending. That is, of course, if we don't let government interference continue to make their ineptitude the taxpayers' problem.

As for Choi's handpicked council, a developer physician, the wife of a physician, a school board employee in the $100,000 principal's club, and the chairman of the council's no-balance finance subcommittee, who's surprised with their tunnel-vision intervention and insensitivity to the residents? It's only a few bucks, right?

As for the rest of us Edison taxpayers, we need to revolt — and not accept this behavior Choi and his out-of-touch council are displaying. This is not a democracy and it needs to stop.
Joseph Petrucelli
Edison