Committeeman gives TV buy a bad reception BY DAN NEWMAN Staff Writer MIDDLETOWN - For eight years, Mike Slover has taken pride in not only being the director of Crossroads at Croydon Hall, but staying within the $7,000 budget that the township allots to the substance abuse treatment center each year. "Everything we purchase is accounted for around here. We also get grant money from the county to pay our counselors and a few other things," Slover said. "Every pencil we buy is accounted for. I keep very strict records." Near the end of last year, Slover, a former Middletown police officer of 32 years, said he still had about $5,000 remaining in his budget and decided to replace his organization's eight-year-old 12-inch television with a brand new $1,100 32-inch Panasonic flatscreen unit, complete with VCR and DVD capabilities, for showing instructional and training videos to residents. However, a member of the Township Committee is not in agreement with Slover's purchasing choice, and it has caused friction among the committee members. "I don't understand why a top-of-the-line television was needed," Committeeman Patrick Short said at last week's meeting. "They can watch their videos on a regular television. That's taxpayer money being spent and I think $1,100 is too much. I really have a problem approving this line item." Short, the lone Democrat on the committee and the first in nearly 20 years, also contended he found 12 places, none of which he specified at the meeting, that carried the exact same item for less money than Thornberry's Appliance & TV, Middletown, where Slover got the set. "I treat taxpayer dollars like I treat my own," Short said. "If I can find an item for less money, then I'd rather go to that particular place." Fellow Committeeman Tom Hall said he had no issue with Slover purchasing the television set in the manner that he did. "They were using a TV that was very old so I have no problem with this at all," Hall said. "Mike Slover does plenty of good work over there and I only wish he was here now to talk about this." Hall also said he would have no problem going over each and every line item if it would suit Short. Eventually, the committee authorized the line item expenditure 4-1, with Short casting the dissenting vote. Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger took things a step further. "What you [Short] are doing is micromanaging to the nth degree," Scharfenberger said. "And doing that would paralyze the township. The point is, that organization has great volunteers and each of us on this committee have seen what goes on over there. Have you?" Slover said he has never met Short. "All he would have to do is come and see me and I guarantee he'd want to be a part of this," Slover said. "I think at this point it's just political grandstanding on his part and I don't appreciate it. In eight years, this is the first negative type of attention we have had." "I can use money from the county to buy pizzas for the kids with no hassle or problem at all, yet my own township has a problem with trying to improve the program here? That's just wrong," Slover said. "I had five places that I was told to check out, and Thornberrys had the best deal and that was it. If Mr. Short is so passionate about it, then next time I'll let him buy the TV. He can deal with it."