Why Essex County Needs Ken Gibson:

To plug the holes in his fraudulent budgets, County Executive Jim Treffinger sold off the precious Hilltop property after vowing to protect open spaces in the county. But he wasn't statisfied selling the property once. He sold parts of it five different times; and he sold it back to the taxpayers who owned the property in the first place!

To plug a hole in his 1995 budget Mr. Treffinger sold the 300 acre property for a greatly inflated price of $32.5 million to the Essex County Improvement Authority, whose bonds are backed by the county taxpayers. But in order to net $32.5 million to throw into the county's 1995 operating budget, the ECIA had to sell $44.5 million in bonds to buy the property that was assessed at only $16 million!

In 1997, again needing money to plug holes in his budget, County Executive Treffinger decided that the ECIA didn't really buy the water system under the ground at the Hilltop. So he sold the water delivery system under the Hilltop property to the Essex County Utilities Authority for $4.2 million; again transferring one county owned asset to another county body; and borrowing millions to do it!

After closely examining the Hilltop land sale again, Mr. Treffinger decided that the ECIA didn't really own the sewerage system under what he called the "lower Hilltop" property. So he sold the Hilltop sewer system to the ECUA for $1.2 million, and put the money into his operating budget.

Needing still more money to plug budget holes, Mr. Treffinger sold the county public works building at the base of the Hilltop to the ECUA for $1.2 million; and the ECUA which is in the solid waste business, really has no need for the building, so it leases the property back to the county!

In his insatiable need for more money to prop up his phony 1998 budget, Mr. Treffinger went back to the Hilltop once again to sell the Police Academy to the County College for $4 million. Again transferring one county-owned asset to another, and making the taxpayers pay for it!

In total, Jim Treffinger increased county indebtedness by $55 million, simply by selling and reselling the various components of the Hilltop property. He sold assets the county owned to county agencies whose bonds are backed by the taxpayers of Essex County; who owned the assets to begin with!

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