Committee, residents deserve better than Short As a lifelong Democrat and avid voter, I have watched with interest the political situation in Middletown. To get to the bottom of the contention, I decided to investigate to find out the unvarnished truth. Here are the facts. It seems as if the mayor and the rest of the council have gone above and beyond what would normally be expected to try and work with Mr. Patrick Short. Even after Mr. Short was involved in a petition scandal heard in county court and most of his campaign statements turned out to be false, the mayor and council still reached out to him after his election to congratulate him and offer him their assistance in learning the complexities of local government. His only response was to say that he should be mayor, even though he had never served on a board, commission or committee in town and had absolutely no experience. Undaunted, the rest of the council still exhibited a willingness to work with Mr. Short. In an e-mail to Mr. Short in February, Committeeman Tom Hall once again implored Mr. Short to call him any time with any questions he may have. Mr. Short's response? An obscene e-mail that was even copied to the female deputy mayor. Since then, Mr. Short has attacked numerous volunteers, township employees and departments in the newspapers. On every occasion, the facts showed Mr. Short to have been 100 percent wrong. The last straw seems to have come when Mr. Short, clad in boots for maximum photo-op effect, publicly attacked the Township Committee and township engineers in a local newspaper regarding flooding without researching the history of the property or the town's past actions. It turns out that once again, Mr. Short was wrong. What is more ironic is that Mr. Short was the only "no" vote against hiring a firm to help secure funding to control flooding in the Bayshore. In closing, I sympathize with the mayor and the frustration he is feeling. I have seen the mayor and the rest of the council work with representatives of all political parties for the betterment of our town. It pains me to think that we have such honest, dedicated, hard-working people willing to devote so much time and energy for a small stipend, having to deal with such a difficult individual. They and the citizens of this town deserve better. Dominick Bogiorno Lincroft section of Middletown