Jason O'Grady's Blog

Millie Messina is a committeewoman in Weymouth Township, New Jersey and she’s a perfect example of a career politician that plays dirty and will stop at nothing to get elected. Don’t let her serene, grandmotherly smile fool you, she’s got a mean streak a mile wide.

Case in point: A few days before the November 8, 2011 election Millie wrote a five-page political tirade filled with vitriol, hatred and more concerning, lies and mailed it to all of the registered voters in Weymouth Township. The first part isn’t illegal of course, it’s well known that Millie is a hateful and vengeful person, so that’s par for the course. In my opinion, the real issue is her lies — and their timing.

You see, Millie’s no stranger to the political ropes, she’s been collecting a salary and padding her pension on the backs of taxpayers for over 30 years. She’s seen it all — including her share of dirty political tricks. For this year’s election she pulled out one of the dirties tricks in the book: an 11th hour letter to voters that twists and distorts facts about her opponents in order to further her political agenda.

Anyone could tell that her little “love letter” was obviously full of lies.

How? It’s easy really. If her claims were truthful she would have distributed the letter in advance of the election. That way voters could digest the information and make up their own minds. Some lead time would also allow the victims of her smear campaign to respond to her allegations well in advance of the election.

But did she do that?  Of course not.

She timed it so that voters would receive her letter on the day before the election

Millie knew that her letter was filled with distortions designed to discredit her political opponents. She also knew that her letter wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. That’s why she mailed it on the eve of the election. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the dirty political playbook, and Millie executed it perfectly, like the seasoned politician that she is.

In fact, her desperate political rant reads more like a dossier of someone planning an attack, rather than an innocent letter. This is also troubling because rather than discussing issues that she has with Township Committee (and perhaps, get them resolved?) she suppressed the information and kept a secret journal of other’s perceived shortcomings. Why did Millie intentionally cover up issues with the Township Committee? So she could “use” the information on election eve in a desperate attempt to mislead her constituents.

Anyone with a shred of fairness would smell a rat here. Why didn’t she schedule a debate? Why didn’t she send a letter to the editor of the newspaper? Because the newspaper wouldn’t print an obvious political attack on the eve of the election without giving the victims a chance to respond. In fact, newspapers have a strict policy about being fair and balanced in their reporting. 

Millie must have missed the class on ethics. And she must have cut the class on morals. Instead it looks like she was teaching the class on how to run a dirty, smear campaign.

Millie will stop at nothing to further her political agenda and her ”friends” should step in line and do as she says, because if you think independently or, heaven help you, have an opinion of your own, you too could find yourself the victim of Millie’s next attack.

[Aside: If Millie made the thousands of copies of her five page manifesto at the Township municipal building, she effectively underwrote her political attack with taxpayer dollars. Millie needs to produce a receipt for the copies she made or promptly reimburse the Township for her late-night use of the Township copier for political slander.]

Mannie Garcia/ Shepard Fairey

One of the original 350 iconic “Hope” portraits of America’s 44th President by artist Shepard Fairey hangs in The National Gallery in Washington. D.C., and another recently sold at a charity auction for more than $200,000. But the portrait is also generating some controversy.

A segment on NFR’s All Things Considered on 5 February 2009 notes:

The Associated Press is alleging copyright infringement for an image of Barack Obama created by street artist Shepard Fairey. Fairey’s lawyers say the image is protected under fair-use provisions.

Margaret Esquenet, an intellectual-property lawyer with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, a Washington, D.C., law firm, says several factors must be examined in the fair-use defense.

“The artist here would have a good argument that the photograph is factual; it’s of a real person at a real event in a news context,” Esquenet tells NPR’s Melissa Block. “It doesn’t appear that the photographer spent time posing or arranging the lighting or arranging the background … that would give it the creative elements that you’d normally see for a photograph.”

Thank you to the residents of Northfield for supporting me and my running mates Jimmy Martinez and Vince Mazzeo. We appreciate your support and look forward to serving you!

As you probably know I’m running for City Council in the Second Ward in Northfield. I want to take a moment to talk about what being on City Council would mean to me.

Although I’m new to politics, I’ve been to almost every City Council meeting since I’ve lived in Northfield. I’ve always been active in my community and I am a participant, not a spectator. I attend City Council meetings because I care about Northfield and I like to know what’s going on in my community. I like to know how my tax dollars are being spent and what our elected officials are up to.

I am also the President of the Democratic Party of Northfield.

I was appointed to the Northfield Planning and Zoning Board in January and love learning about development in our fair city. The Planning Board allows me to learn more about the more technical aspects of planning, permitting, zoning and construction and it allows me to keep in touch with another aspect of our town.

My wife, daughter and I are active members of St. Bernadette’s Church, we attend Parish Council meetings, we volunteer and most recently have been asked to participate in the Parish Fund Raising Committee.

I want to be a member of City Council because I like what they do and I want to be a part of it.

City Council is about working together as a team and it shouldn’t be about partisan politics–especially on the local level. Residents don’t care about divisive, negative politics. They just want to know that their money isn’t being spent carelessly, that the roads are paved, that the streets don’t flood and that their kids can walk safely down our streets (among other things).

In a town of 7,000 registered voters, we shouldn’t waste time on negativity and partisan politics–there’s no time for that. We need to focus our efforts on the resident’s interests and eliminate the time and effort wasted on negativity and mud-slinging.

My pledge to you is that, if elected, I will work diligently with every member of City Council regardless of their political affiliation to affect change. I will do everything I can to keep Northfield great and make Northfield even better. I will work with the resident’s interests at heart and I will have a 100 percent open door, transparent policy. As the old saying goes “sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

There’s no time for negativity, lies and slander in local politics–or any politics for that matter. The residents don’t like it and it’s insulting to their intelligence.

Since I entered this race I’ve been investigated, slandered and the victim of a vicious smear campaign by my opponent. Many people have told me that he’s run the most negative campaign in Northfield’s history. Is that who you want up on the dais in City Hall? This is not why I got into politics. In fact, dirty politics is probably the main reason why there’s very few people willing to run for office.

The good thing is that the residents of Northfield are intelligent and they’re aware of what’s going on. My opponent’s dirty, eleventh-hour attempts to knock me down have backfired.

I hope that you’ll consider all the facts and vote with your heart and your mind on Tuesday. I look forward to seeing you at the polls.

- Jason O’Grady

Keep an eye on your mailbox for our new postcard which will be arriving today or tomorrow.

Please also note that our postcard complies with State and Local election campaign laws because it has the required legal disclaimer at the bottom. Some other postcards arriving in my mailbox recently (not going to mention who) don’t have the disclaimer and are illegal.

Here’s a copy of my ad that ran in the October 31, 2007 issue of The Current. The combination of my opponent’s plug of my blog in The Press of Atlantic City and my ad on page three of The Current has generated more than 50,000 unique visitors to this site.

Welcome new visitors! Bookmark this site and come back to find out what’s really happening in Northfield.

Here’s a sneak peek at our little display ad that’s running in the October 31 issue of The Current:

Our pledge to you:

1) Support for all senior citizen, youth and volunteer programs
2) Actively pursue shared services and save taxpayers money
3) Fiscal responsibility
4) Control capital spending
5) Improve traffic conditions and control speeding
6) Continue to purchase property through the Atlantic County Open Space Funding Program