Jason O’Grady’s Blog

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

You may already be familiar with a letter that I sent to Northfield about corruption in the City’s Building Department. If you’re not, I encourage you to read the letter.

I wrote the letter because I had heard that the Building Department was conducting a covert investigation of me and my residence in an attempt to get “dirt” on me because I am running for City Council. The problem with it is that salaries of city employees is paid for by taxpayers (you and I) and is supposed to be bipartisan and neutral.

In addition to spreading lies about me being an illegal renter (which Mr. Jim Dickinson in the Building Department told me to my face) and being ineligible to run for office, Northfield employees were digging through city archives looking for building permits about my Geothermal installation in my home, which was featured in The Current.

I caught them in the act when I stopped into the Building Department one day to address the lies that were being spread about my residency status. Sitting out on the counter in the Building Department was a copy of my the Building Permit issued for the Geothermal heating system installed at my home in 1999. That’s right, an eight year old building permit for my residence happened to be sitting on the counter waiting to be picked up. What a coincidence!

When I asked Jim Dickinson who requested it, he lied to my face and said that he “didn’t know.” Um, right.

Did I mention that Jim Dickinson is the Treasurer of the Northfield Republican Club?

When the City Administrator investigated the issues brought up in my letter, Mr. Dickinson immediately “lawyered up” and had union representation at the meeting. His response? The building permit wasn’t there!

Jim Dickinson lied to the City Administrator.

I know what I saw and I saw a copy of the building permit for my residence sitting on the counter. Mr. Dickinson fears losing his taxpayer funded cushy job because of his deception, lies and his use of municipal resources for political gain. He may have been able to lie to the Administrator, but a lot of other people are aware of what he did and are starting to pay attention.

I would like to see a full investigation of the security tapes from the hallway outside the Building Department between August 22 and September 24 to see if that helps Mr. Dickinson “remember” who requested a copy of my building permit.
I have my theories about who is behind this heinous taxpayer-funded witch hunt, but you be the judge. Here’s a time line:

- A certain “green” resident of Northfield and member of the Republican Party Executive Committee gets some PR in The Press and on HGTV about his solar panels. He also calls certain radio programs every day to boast about his solar panels.

- A nice piece written about the Geothermal heating and cooling system in my house in The Current on August 22, 2007. (Geothermal is a renewable energy source and very environmentally friendly. Dare I say that it’s “green?”)

- Many Northfield residents read The Current and probably read the story about me.

- A couple of days later I hear rumblings that I am being smeared and covertly investigated by members of the Northfield Building Department that are also on the Republican Party Executive Committee.

I can’t prove who was investigating me on the taxpayers dime, but I have my suspicions… Stay tuned.

City workers should should be bipartisan and impartial, especially when our taxes are paying their salary. I’m wondering why the Building Department has so much extra time on their hands that they can conduct investigations of private citizens?

With my opponent’s recent rash of lies and slander about me and my family I’m left to wonder who’s running the ship at the Northfield Republican Club?

The Northfield Republican Club has endorsed Mr. O’Neill as their Second Ward candidate and have taken out numerous ads with the headline “Leadership for Today. Vision for Tomorrow.”

Is Mr. O’Neill’s idea of “Leadership” lying to The Current about his record, lying to The Press of Atlantic City about me, or lying to his neighbors? How many other times has he lied?

The other Northfield Republicans have been suspiciously quiet about their candidate lately…

What about the rest of the Republicans on City Council? Do they endorse Jim (Mr. Negative) O’Neill for City Council?

Guilty by association?

Next up: I’ll take a hard look at the Northfield Building Department.