>Pro Valley Russell Forenza : rolls out the check book
News Flash: Mr. Forenza has run a full page advertisement in the Ridgewood News. A quarter page advertisement costs over $1,100. I can only guess what a full page advertisement would cost.
Additionally, I have now seen many new Forenza signs going up. These are a new batch and look different from the original ones put up two weeks ago. This fellow may have “backers”. None of the other three candidates are running any commercial advertisements in news papers or putting up many signs because its very costly. Unfortunately, candidate expense reporting is not available until 30 days after an election. This is unfortunate, as we learned with the prior election when two candidates took union money. Thankfully that incident was exposed on election day and I think it really affected the outcome. Accepting donations from outside interests has the serious potential to compromise the village in any bargaining processes.
I sincerely hope that is not the case here and I hope Mr. Forenza will come out and at least confirm that the money is his, if that is the case, or did not come from unions that do business with the village, unions that do business with the City of Patterson or Valley Hospital. This is a very sticky issue for many of us. We respect the privacy of donors but we can’t be naive and not look at motivations either. This is one reason why Villagers strongly prefer candidates that spend little beyond the sweat of their brow on local electioneering.
Again, I am sure Mr. Forenza is an honorable person but I would like to see clarity on this issue before the vote. I, for one, could not vote for Mr. Forenza without his comment on this issue. I know many Villagers feel the same. If it’s his own money paying for his campaign advertisements-more power to him! If not: Villagers beware!
