Margate’s Commissioner of Revenue and Finance, Maury Blumberg, was caught by surprise.
Was Blumberg kept in the dark by Margate Mayor, Michael Collins?
$18,000 no-bid contract for somebody to post stuff on Facebook?
Listen to Blumberg grill Collins:
It looks like we’re awarding a political patronage contract to a friend.
Margate Commissioner Maury Blumberg
Good government is supposed to be open, honest and transparent. As [revenue and finance] Commissioner, I had no idea that we were looking to do this. There was no RFP, request for proposal.
Who initiated the process? According to Margate’s Mayor Collins, it was former administrator Ken Mosca, back in January.
Mosca was let go as Margate Business Admin just one year into his 3 year deal with the city. Inexplicably, the reasons for Mosca being fired haven’t been made public.
Collins OK’ed decision to stop sending out the popular Margate newsletter. “We felt our social media presence needed to be enhanced.”
Collins: We needed to become relevant. There’s a lot of misinformation, bad information, and negative information out there. We live in a great town. I think we need to do a better job advertising how great our town is.
Blumberg: Isn’t that why we pay $100,000+ for the MBA, Margate Business Association?
Blumberg: Does this proposal address the needs of Margate’s city website?
Collins: No, not right now. We’re doing away with the newsletter that we send to all the people that aren’t in town.
Margate second homeowners being kept in dark
We went from $8,000 last year, to $18,000 this year. We’re going to lose services to get increased Facebook and Instagram? No formal request for proposal. We typically advertise to collect bids. We didn’t do that. We only asked two people.
Blumberg: It just smells bad to me. We shouldn’t vote on it. We shouldn’t award it. I think it’s going to be contested. It puts us in legal jeopardy, and we should do it right. Put it out for bid. That’s bad. I wasn’t aware of that. It makes us look bad. A tremendous amount of money for very little service, and not the services we need.
‘Roger McLarnon [Margate’s building code official] believed we should move forward’ said Mayor Collins, playfully known as the ‘TIK-TOK Mayor‘.
Disgusting governance. Commissioner Blumberg asking city administration to do this correctly.
Maury speaking for people of Margate. Mayor Collins says, Too Bad!
Maury was screwed over by Collins and Horn, day one, and they are taking their majority voting power and screwing all tax payers in Margate to pay back friends and themselves.
Collins is speaking for those who only he supports. His friends, family and pay to play cohorts.
Is there truth in rumors that Collins pushing for his wife to be Principal of Tighe School?
Is Collins running a family business or the City of Margate?
Maybe a recall election is in order?
Respectfully. I did not initiate the change in social media as mentioned by Mayor Collins. He approached me with the idea to change from the existing consultant, to Shannon, the consultant who ran the social media campaign during his election. He asked that I run it by Commissioner Blumberg, which I did, and he rejected the idea. I advised Mayor Collins of same. I was not in favor due to the cost.
Thank you Ken.
So Mayor Collins nose is growing?
Why is the building code official involved, is he the de facto city manager?
Looks like Maury even equipped with a Vanderbilt college degree and 17 years experience on the Commission is a lousy judge of picking teamates. Therefore, Maury is sentenced to 3 more years of holding the short straw.
I understand that Collins and Horn needed Maury to win.
Maury was told by Amodeo and Collins senior who he will run with in exchange for him becoming Mayor
.
Within the first two minutes of the first commissioners meeting the truth came out snd Horn nominated Collins for Mayor.Then the two of them Collins and Horn of voted for Collins
Maury abstained and Horn and Collins voted for Collins. A political set up to get what Amodeo and Collins wanted.
Margate, are you happy with this?
41% of the voters saw it coming and wanted change.
The locals are being sold out .
You voted for this.
Now say good bye to your Margate.
.
you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas
Margate City government gets caught AGAIN with their hand in the cookie jar. Makes our city look corrupt, or should I say, Margate City, is corrupt.
How many deals have gone down in Margate that we don’t even know about?
Shame on Mayor Collins….. again!
Has anyone seen the mess the Tequila Bar is in on corner of Ventnor and Monroe?
What was our city government thinking when they gave the Tequila people an ok to create a disaster in Margate?
Oh Margate you’re really setting me on FIRE. Your decisions are severely affecting my business and others.
I’ve supported your community for 30 yrs and your making me work harder then I ever had to.
No parking, no public restrooms, public urination everywhere, variances for everyone except homeowners who want simple changes AND SO MUCH MORE!
You’re ridiculously out of control. Your actions are scaring me.
Making public note: You are wasting my time and energy. To be continued 🙃
Do a flow chart of the municipalities in New Jersey, especially beach towns. You will notice a trend among many of those employed by the municipalities, police departments and schools. Not to mention professional service contracts.
Even with civil service testing for some municipal positions and police positions, there is basically a family and friends network of employment going on where they’re employed in various positions and high ranking positions in the municipality and/or the police department and/or the schools. And add in the professional service contracts.
You literally have multiple family members working for the same municipality, same police department and same schools.
Been going on for decades. Makes you wonder how one without connections can even get hired. Most can not.
Beach towns love that most of their residents are second home owners that pay taxes, but can’t vote.
If they can control the few remaining year round residents, they can maintain their control and keep the family and friends employment going.
I know of Maury Blumberg, but don’t know him. He has lived in Margate for a long time and it seems like he’s trying to do the right thing.
Stuff like this… is the tip of the iceberg.
This is what you hear and know about.
Just imagine the stuff that you don’t know about.
Margate is experiencing a “Credibility Gap”
Jay:
I agree with you.
I think Margate’s “credibility” from their local elected officials has always experienced this for the most part among the majority of their elected officials.
It has only become worse over the years and, due to better media coverage, the public has become more aware of it.
I doubt it will get much better.
They will just do a better job of covering it up.