The Liberal

Far Left

Here’s something to be concerned about: it’s called the “Liberal Far Left ” and who are they? They’re a group of people that think far left and trying to take over the city government – plus causing riots. The mayors of Seattle and Portland found out the hard way, but it didn’t matter. They just look the other way. The U.S. Military had warned us about the Far Left and were watching them. I’ll bet many law enforcement agencies were also warned. Can the Liberal Far Left come to a town near you?

Orlando “Wildman” Perez 

Shots Fired in Perth Amboy

Dear Friends,

I am a lifelong resident of the City of Perth Amboy, a graduate of Perth Amboy High School, and have served for the past ten years as a member of the Perth Amboy City Council.

I am a former member of the Board of Education, a past Fire Chief and a volunteer Firefighter with 40 years of service to Perth Amboy. I am writing to you today because I have never been so concerned about the future of our city.

There have been three shootings in the city in as many days. One on Mitchell place. The last one on Monday (7/27) at McDonalds, in broad daylight. Someone was shot in the leg. All apparently gang related.

During the administration of Mayor Wilda Diaz, we’ve had murders on the train tracks by supposed members of MS-13, a violent street gang that originated on the west coast. We’ve had multiple street shootouts and incidents over the last few years. 

Yet it’s not just these major crimes. Time and time again I hear the same question: Where are the police? Why are the police not present in our downtown business district? Where are our police when homeowners and renters alike complain constantly about noise—from loud cars and motorcycles to loud music that you can hear for three or four blocks around your neighborhood?

I constantly hear complaints about overcrowded housing and overcrowded streets with nowhere to park. Wilda Diaz’s solution to all this is to build more apartments in our community, to disregard the complaints about noise, health, litter, and dirty streets. Her only vision for our Perth Amboy is warehouses and large-scale apartment building projects. No concern for our community, for school overcrowding, for a lack of open space and recreational space for our children. Her focus on large-scale building projects equals campaign funding.

Where is the leadership under our present city government in this, our beautiful community?

In the last 12 years, Wilda Diaz has cut the ribbons at many business openings—businesses that have shuttered their doors and gone out of business without any fanfare. These businesses failed, not because of Covid-19, but because of the incompetence of our present mayor and her administration.

It’s not just the incompetence. The level of corruption in this present administration rivals that of the end days of the Joe Vas administration. They are only missing an FBI investigation. Wilda Diaz’s former police chief appointment, her good friend, ended in criminal charges and dismissal. Her first campaign treasurer, a city employee whom she publicly promoted time and time again, was terminated for theft and corruption.

It’s an administration in constant turmoil. The average citizen going about their daily routine of life has no idea of the chaos within city government, and how that harms the functioning of the city.

The one competent manager in City Hall—a West Point graduate, a disabled veteran, an experienced business administrator—who proudly served our country in war, who had served in numerous communities throughout New Jersey and the US, and who had served our community for 18 months, was abruptly dismissed a few days ago—without warning or explanation to the city’s governing body. This is a man who the city council had searched out and interviewed through a formal hiring process that took more than three months.

Wilda Diaz saw fit, without consulting the city council, to dismiss him without cause. She sent him home with pay through the end of the year, and named herself BA in his place. So now in addition to mayor and police director, she is now also the city’s business administrator, with no training or experience to hold that position. Why? Because the fired BA was unwilling to set aside his judgment, his strong sense of ethics, his morality, his fairness, and his respect for the law to follow the whims of Wilda Diaz and her plotting Inner Circle.

Diaz has cut out the city council from receiving any communication from the administration. We were getting daily Covid-19 updates from the BA. Updates on police and fire activities were a matter of course. We have heard nothing since the BA was dismissed. While the bullets are flying in Perth Amboy, the Diaz Administration has fallen silent, not seeing fit to communicate important information to the city’s governing body on this or any other matters of importance. She would rather bury the information and have the city council hear about it on the street.  Now naming the 11th. Business Administrator in her 12 years as mayor.

Over these last 12 years, she and her handpicked administration cronies have drilled down and focused completely on one goal and one goal alone:  Getting herself elected to another four-year term as mayor. But can Perth Amboy survive another four years of Wilda Diaz?

If we do not reject Diaz in November, this is what her administration will leave our community: No serious quality jobs, higher taxes, higher water and sewer bills, overcrowded schools, overcrowded neighborhoods, and dirty streets.

As we get closer to November, the one question you need to ask yourself is this:  Are you better off today than you were before Diaz? Think about our community. Is it cleaner than it was? Are our neighborhoods quieter? Are they less congested? Are they safer? Can you find a parking space in front of your house? Do you want to shop downtown? Do you see a responsive police presence when you ask for and need it?

If the answer is no, this is not the fault of Covid-19. This is Diaz. This is how the Diaz Administration operates.

These are dangerous times for our community. Only the city council stands in the way of Diaz’s dangerously corrupt path for Perth Amboy. The difficulty of working with someone so erratic and lacking in judgment may be a reason why she has never been able to keep the same people as council running mates from one election to another. Just about everyone who was once an ally has separated themselves from her, and her campaigns. It’s time for the voters of Perth Amboy to do the same.

William Petrick

President,

Perth Amboy City Council