“PRONTI GONE WILD”
NORTH ARLINGTON MAYOR BERATES DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE DURING COUNCIL MEETING, REFUSES TO LET SEVER MAKE A STATEMENT WITHOUT INTERFERENCE & DISRUPTION!
Threats of being removed from the meeting were almost comical with Republicans ruling the roost!
NORTH ARLINGTON – In a wild and unprovoked display of unprofessional behavior and decorum, North Arlington Mayor Dan Pronti (R) refused Democratic council candidate Cengiz “Jim” Sever allow to read into the record his public comments without interruption and then proceeded to instigate an argument with John Balwierczak, a former Republican turned Democrat who is Sever’s running mate.
Residents and citizens are given 5 minutes under public comment where any individual has an allotted amount of time to discuss any issues before the community. Most commentary is about items of concern and is not a question-and-answer volley with the governing body.
Here is the video portion of the meeting
It should be noted that Sever addressed the governing body but was being interrupted during his stated time.
In the case of Balwierczak, he never engaged the governing except pleading with the Mayor to let Sever have his say as a citizen and resident.
“Someone needs to remind Pronti that this isn’t his meeting, but the people’s meeting and that a candidate for office has a right to address concerns and issues in a respectful fashion which is exactly what Jim tried to do. I tried to defend Jim from these interruptions and distractions by Mr. Pronti. The video tape is for all to see. The adversarial and confrontational approach Pronti takes is political, partisan and petty. Pronti wanted an argument. He controls the microphone and disrupts what was an honest attempt to talk about the issues people really like to talk about such as these random and rolling tax assessments. Pronti thinks these rolling assessments don’t raise property taxes, and the fact is every member of the governing body who owns a home saw their property taxes increase over the last two years because of these rolling assessments,” offered Balwierczak.
“We are in the streets and canvassing. Property taxes are the most talked about issue and these rolling reassessments are highly unpopular. It took them 20 minutes to explain a foiled logic that at the end of the day raises people’s property values and taxes indiscriminately in an unfair manner. 
We are on the right side of this issue, and they are doubling down on policies homeowners oppose. We make one promise and that is to revert back to a normal and reasonable assessment process like the 495 other municipalities that do not engage in over taxation and underrepresentation,” said both Balwierczak and Sever.
“This is how a resident is treated when you challenge this, Mayor. It’s petty, pathetic and unprofessional. This is why we need responsible two-party government here in North Arlington right now,” offered the hopefuls.
“And during the entire debacle, Del Russo and DeCicco didn’t utter a word.”
The Democrats (Balwierczak & Sever)are the only candidates in the race that oppose these random and rolling tax assessments.