I am ashamed to have encouraged people to vote for Howard Burrell for mayor

To the Editor:

Mayor Howard Burrell’s duplicitous, combative, and pugnacious attack and defamatory assault in the Advertiser-News last week on Council President Patrick Rizzuto — his next-door neighbor and alleged friend of 40 years — was a disgrace. Burrell falsely accuses Mr. Rizzuto, a gentleman of integrity and honor, for creating a negative, hostile image and atmosphere at council meetings since Rizzuto took office in January. The truth is that Mayor Burrell has created the most hostile and spiteful atmosphere of any elected official Vernon has ever had since he took office on January 2020. Meeting after meeting, Burrell even attacks private citizens and frames them.

It is my belief based on personal observation that Burrell has a flawed character and does not know how to tell the truth. I believe he has violated many municipal government laws, misappropriated taxpayer funds, and failed to uphold the oath he took. So many of the residents who voted for him are disgusted with him and with the only thing he has done since taking office — working on a two million dollar plus trail/park project we do not need. I hear this from people almost every single day. Vernon residents rue the day they voted for him for mayor. Many residents and current generations did not know Burrell, but he squeaked by the mayoral race with just 116 votes only because a few key, well-respected residents and I put our support behind him and encouraged people to vote for him. We were so deceived, and I am so ashamed for my role in that. I apologize sincerely to the residents of our town. In contrast, our three new council members won the November 2021 election in a landslide by thousands of votes — a mandate by residents who opposed Burrell’s ill-conceived and ill-planned project on toxic property. Now, Burrell has recklessly and maliciously saddled Vernon residents in perpetuity with this contaminated property he closed on last week without even telling the council and despite the majority of the council voting against the purchase. Even the attorney Burrell hired for the closing was not told the property had been the subject of a 25-year-old Department of Environmental Protection lawsuit for toxic spills and contamination — Superior Court of New Jersey Docket No. L-284-04. And now Burrell will put a children’s bicycle pump track, a trail, and a park there? Does the deed for the property remove the township or any subsequent buyers from liability? No, it does not, because the DEP consent judgment holds all current and future owners liable in perpetuity. I am ashamed to have encouraged people to vote for Howard Burrell for mayor. He is a humiliation and a disgrace to our town and to the office of mayor. He is, in my estimation, the worst mayor and overall worst elected official Vernon Township has ever had. Our three, new council members won by our “Clean House” campaign, and Burrell is part of the house cleaning our town desperately needs. Vernon residents need to continue to clean house this November and in November 2023 and restore integrity to our municipal government.

Jessi Paladini

Vernon