GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (NOVEMBER 2012)– After the 1982 mayoral election in Gloucester City, two members of the Gloucester City Democrat Club/Party Machine approached Camden County Sheriff Bill Simon on behalf of the club’s membership. They pleaded with him to stop publishing sheriff’s sales in the Gloucester City News and the Camden County Record, both of which were owned by the Cleary family at the time. These legal notices were worth between $20,000 and $30,000 annually. Running for mayor that year were Independent candidate Robert S. Bevan and the endorsed Democrat Club candidate Jack Brophy.
Bevan won the election. The two Democrats told Sheriff Simon the reason for their request was that Cleary was a “troublemaker,” and they wanted to punish him, claiming that my reporting favored Bevan because he and I were friends. Leading up to the November election, the Gloucester City News published 45 articles and photos for the Democrats and 29 articles and photos for the Independents. Those photos and press releases for both sides were published on the front page from August up until the November election. We showed no preference to either side.
Sheriff Simon, who was a Democrat at the time, called me to inform me of their request. He said, “Bill, you have nothing to fear. I am not going to stop publishing the legal notices in your newspapers. I believe you do a good job covering the news in Gloucester City and Fairview, and I told those individuals the same thing.”
Consider what these politicians wanted to do to my family and me simply because they lost a mayoral election to an unknown candidate. It’s worth noting that they still held a 6-1 majority on the council. At that time, Connie and I were trying to raise three young children, pay a home mortgage, buy a newspaper, and renovate a dilapidated property on Broadway for office space. If Sheriff Simon had acted on their request, both newspapers would have faced the threat of closing. Our other projects, which were financially supported, would have likely been jeopardized as well. We depended on the income from the sheriff’s sales to survive. Without that income, the ten part-time employees we employed would have been laid off, and we would have struggled to keep up with payments on the house, the office property, and other financial commitments.
This kind of unsavory, underhanded politics from local power brokers has continued over the next 33 years and persists today.
Four years later, when Bevan was up for re-election, the Democrat Club’s campaign literature included an attack on my professional integrity.
Here are some excerpts from the October 1986 campaign literature:
“It is our opinion that the people of Gloucester City have not received impartial coverage from our local newspaper. We understand that it is tough for a newspaper owner who is also a personal friend of the current mayor to present information that may be detrimental to that friend.
When the newspaper owner is the sole decision-maker on what gets printed and what gets omitted, it is expected that personal interests and relationships will prevail. While this may be considered ethical in the publishing business, in our view, it is definitely NOT in the best interest of the community seeking the truth.
We are deeply committed to the principles of democracy, where everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and we have no fear about the outcome of allowing the people to form their own opinions. The truth is something to be feared only by those with something to hide. We have nothing to gain by presenting half-truths or substituting opinion for fact.
For these reasons, we feel it is necessary to explore alternative ways to provide the citizens of Gloucester City with the information they need to make informed decisions. Based on past experiences, we believe that the local newspaper does not offer this opportunity for our citizens.”
Bevan and his three Independent running mates for council, Bart Rettew, Maryann Callahan, and Jack Brandt, were all victorious. Their opponents that year were Democrat mayor candidate Pat McNutt and council members Will Tice, Daniel Spencer Jr., and Thomas Quicksell. Republican candidates included Frank Gandy, for mayor and council candidates, Anna Marie Smith, Walt Jost, and Cliff Oorlog.
My answer to the Democrat Party’s disparaging remarks appeared in the November 6, 1986 Gloucester City News. You can read it here.
In the mid-1990s, the city council passed an ordinance requiring landlords to pay a $25 inspection fee for each rental they owned. For example, if you had a duplex you paid a total of $50. A triplex, $75. This was on top of the annual fire inspection fees the city housing office was already charging landlords. After writing an editorial, critical of the new law, we received a notice from the Housing Office to fix a crack in the sidewalk apron behind the office building we owned. The crack was so small you could hardly see it. When we complained to the Housing Officer, he said, “Maybe you will think twice before writing your next editorial about our department.” [paraphrase]
Some members of the Gloucester City Democrat Club and their cronies, both past and present, continue to blame anyone who dares to question their policies. This city has been under its party’s control for decades. In all the years I have been reporting on city government, they only lost the majority of the council seats once, that was in 1986.
Thus, I could never figure out their overreaction to someone who voiced an opposing view. Surely they have heard of the Constitution of the United States, which endows each one of us with certain inalienable rights such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Religion, and so forth.
Yet these individuals have continued their vindictive ways for decades against anyone who challenges their actions or has an opposing view. They also strike down anyone who provides you, the public, with information they don’t want you to have.
For example, earlier this year, Dave Stallwood and Bob Booth, both members of the Gloucester City Business Association, who are also active members in the Gloucester Economic Development Corporation, complained to Gloucester City News publisher Albert Countryman about my weekly column that appeared in the paper for the past 12 years. As a result of their complaint, Countryman fired me from my position with the paper.
Not satisfied with my dismissal, Stallwood approached Joe Carlino, the owner of Gloucester Transmission, and told the man he should cancel his ad with us, “because Cleary is a troublemaker.”
Carlino called and said he was intimidated by Stallwood’s recommendation. Afraid of repercussions from the powers in charge in our city, he canceled his advertisement. He had been advertising on our blog for the past five years.
Stallwood, who came to this country from England in the 1980s, operates a thriving automotive electronic repair garage at Broadway and Cumberland Street. When he first arrived, he lived in Gloucester City for a while, but now he lives elsewhere. He is a personal friend of Gloucester City Mayor William James.
Stallwood didn’t respond to our attempts to reach him for a comment.
Let us take a look at who is really responsible for this city’s problems today.
- Since 1980, our City has been picked clean by the political power brokers, both on the local level and on the county and state levels. Some of our representatives, along with their family and friends, have gotten rich or found lifetime “political plum” jobs just because they are connected to the Gloucester City Democrat Party
- Those same people are the reason why there are very few press releases being issued by the city government. They don’t want you to know how your tax dollars are being wasted.
- This same organization is the reason that you can no longer view the council meetings on the Public Access Channel 19.
- The local Democrats are the reason that many of the recommendations in the city’s 1995 Master Plan were never fulfilled. For example, one proposal called for the creation of a public plaza at Broadway and Cumberland Street, including a restaurant with outdoor seating, new retail space along Broadway, from Cumberland Street north on Broadway to Hudson Street, with residential housing above the business locations.
- The City Democrat government is the reason Gloucester City has the unflattering distinction of being labeled an Urban Enterprise Zone and an Abbott School District. If the original plan had been followed, the Public School system would have remained in place. The plan called for $20 million in renovations to update the school buildings. The state would have paid half, and residents would have paid the balance over the next 10 years. Also, the Hughes Avenue Apartments would have been remodeled into a senior citizens housing complex. Instead, the taxpayers paid for a $87 million middle school, a $20 million pre-school. And a $40 million K-4 grade elementary school.
- Former Gloucester City Democrat mayor Charles Billingham and his administration are the reason that Holt is sitting in the former Coast Guard building for the next 100 years.
- The City Democrats are the reason a compost waste-disposal plant was planned for the waterfront and not a marina and new housing.
- The Democrat mayor and council are the reason the King Street Corridor plan was never implemented.
- The Gloucester City Democratic Party is the reason the proposed Irish Village announced in 2007-08 was never built.
- The Gloucester City Democratic Party is to blame for the poor design of the $5 million city marina project, which was initially built without electricity or water. Not only did the cost of that marina jump by several million, but because of the poor planning, every piece of debris that floats in the Delaware River is trapped inside the marina at low tide.
- Those same Democrats are the reason the Redevelopment Agreement signed on May 28, 2005, between the city and Scarborough Properties, never became a reality. The plan called for 200 condominiums along Freedom Pier, complete with a swimming pool and clubhouse. Plans also called for Holt to move their corporate office from the base to another site within the city.
- The is the reason Gloucester City’s local and school taxes increase each and every year, along with the city’s water and sewer rates. Gloucester City residents are one of 30 communities in the state with the highest taxes, coming in at number 23.
- The Democrats are the reason that $7 million was wasted on the purchase of Chatham Square Apartments and $5 million was spent to buy the vacant Amspec Chemical toxic property.
- The local Democrats are the reason our waterfront has never been developed to its full potential. Since 1980, there have been millions of dollars spent on studies that have gone nowhere. The GCDPM should be ashamed for the scam they tried to pull in 2006-07 under the guise of The Gloucester Vista proposal. They knew all along that the Southport area was not fit for human habitat. Yet they led you to believe that hundreds of new homes were going to be built on that site.
The GCDPM is the reason you will never read an opposing point of view about any controversy involving mayor and council or the city school board in the Gloucester City News. Freedom of Speech is not allowed in Gloucester City.
Although those in power, present and past, like to point the finger at anyone but themselves for this city’s downward spiral, the sole responsibility for its decline, mismanagement and failed projects rests squarely on their shoulders. The city’s decline began in 1980 and has continued to this day. Every governing body that served on council over that period is at fault. No matter what they tell you, they, along with the power brokers who hide behind closed doors, are the people who are to blame.
- The Democrats who have managed this City for decades are the reason South Jersey Political Boss George Norcross and his back-room politics are very much alive in the City of Gloucester. If Boss Norcross says JUMP you can bet your mayor and council will say HOW HIGH!
PUBLISHED