Dear Editor,
I attended Mayor Barberio’s recent Town Hall planned for only the Indian-American community. I wanted to hear firsthand all viewpoints on local issues being debated in the news, such as the much-talked-about PILOT programs, skyrocketing water and sewer fees, and the many car break-ins and home burglaries.
I went with an open mind, but that all ended after Mayor Barberio started the Town Hall with a 30-minute tirade. He railed against everyone with opinions different from his own: the Board of Education, citizens who feel their taxes and fees are too high, people who are against taxpayer-funded development projects, and residents/town hall employees who post anonymously on Facebook. You name it, he ranted against everyone critical of him.
The Mayor’s demeanor out of the gate was so defensive, it reminded me of President Biden’s angry State of the Union address last month.
There wasn’t even a need for the mayor to be so thin-skinned at the meeting, it wasn’t that well attended. There were so many vacant seats, and many were populated by the banquet hall’s out-of-town staff members and their friends.
The town hall was run by the Mayor’s hand-picked Indian American liaison who spoon-fed township officials with predetermined, softball questions with no interaction with the crowd. It was strictly a one-way conversation.
When the meeting finally opened up to a question-and-answer period, Barberio’s liaison announced on the microphone that only Indian Americans could ask questions of the mayor and senior municipal staff. Residents of other ethnicities could not speak.
This Mayor owes all of his non-Indian constituents a formal apology for alienating a section of his constituency at a township-sanctioned public meeting while pandering to another population. What is he hiding to need such a choreographed meeting that instituted a gag order to a subsection of his constituency?
Sue Petrovic
Lifelong Parsippany Resident
