Gerry Scharfenberger...and his Middletown flyer

Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger has a flyer circulating. In it, he is making some new allegations.

In his flyer, he is saying "The Courier newspaper, opwned by the town center personally called candidates to run against Tristan Nelsen and me and is personally calling individuals asking them not to vote for us."

In addition, he says, "Information from OPRA requests filed by the Courier is used in Democrat press releases."

And he concludes the 'bullett portion' with his flyer by saying, "Letters written to the paper by me refuting inaccuracies are never printed, while Democrat letters, particularly those of the party chairman Joe Caliendo appear regularly."

Besides from having some grammar issues, Mr. Scvharfenberger is factually challenged as well.

No. 1: The Middletown Demcorats run themselves. The Middletown Demcorats are a very determined bunch of people, in my experience, and to say that the owner of this newspaper, or the newspaper itself, can tell them what to say or think would be ridiculous. Part of an earlier assertion in Mr. Scharfenberger's letter is one that the Democrats would approve a Town Center; kinda hard given the fact the only Demcorat on the committee right now used to head the group formed against it.

No. 2: As for OPRA requests, they are public. This newspaper prints information it receives in OPRA requests. People read the newspaper -- thereby the information -- and so if they use it that would be their business. Public information is just that -- not supposed to be a poker chip by a repressive government. The Courier prints information, and then people read it.

No. 3: Neither Gerry Scharfenberger nor anyone else on this committee (sans Patrick Short) has communicated with the newspaper at all. This is their problem -- they do not communicate well.

With all of that said -- what about the Town Hall corruption and the GOP selling the township out for the sake of their chairman/bond counsel/water and sewerage commissioner, Mr. Peter Carton? How about refuting that he is the chairman of the GOP, a sitting appointed official, and his company got the bond work for the township (and he's in charge of the bonding arm for his firm)?

Town Center is an old song, and the recording has dust on it. If Mr. Scharfenberger wants to reform government in Middletown, then him and his committee can stop spending money like it's water and dreaming up new buildings to bond for, which never make revenue. Gerry Scharfenberger plays fast and loose with the truth, as evidenced by this piece of nonsense. To resort to this garbage for the sake of politics is more of the same from this character.

Scharfenberger, Nelsen: Not answering questions as usual

Middletown Township Public Information Officer Cindy Herrschaft and Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger have made it very clear in recent years that The Courier, all of its staff and every reporter, can only contact the mayor or any member of any appointed commission through Ms. Herrschaft. Not only has there been a total inability for the Middletown Committee to communicate effectively with at least this newspaper, but this broad brush policy this administration has put in place is nothing if not near-sighted.

While it is not the place of government to field political questions, a story being developed for this week about GOP campaign literature in town has not been answered by the mayor or his running mate, Ms. Tristan Nelsen, because both of these people are either elected or on a board. So once again, a great big excuse for not answering questions about issues. But at this point, there really isn't much of a need to state a policy: The Middletown Committee doesn't like answering questions that are hard and have established many procedures that emplace a near total inability for this newspaper to communicate with it.

That is their choice. The choice of the staff at The Courier is to keep asking questions, in the hope that one day one will be answered.