—
Let’s Get the Facts Straight – Response to Nasty Ad and David Kohn’s Letter
This week’s issue had a number of politically charged letters, and a full page ads from fake political committees.
It is clear, that as an independent, unaffiliated candidate, I scare both political parties in this election. It’s the only explanation for them spending thousands of dollars on full pages ads, and submitting so many letters to the editor in defense of candidate Lauren Kohn whose honesty I had questioned.
Of course, I am no match for two political powerhouses. I’m just the little guy who they thought they could ignore, and then decided to beat up on when they realized they couldn’t.
So first I want to address the full page ad on page 25 of the newspaper. It was “paid for by the West Windsor CITIZENS AGAINST NASTY POLITICS at PO Box 2172 in Princeton Jct.” Which is very similar to the “West Windsor Citizens Against Dishonest Politicians at PO Box 1272 who have an ad on page 14. At least that ad put me in the honest column where I belong.
I think it’s ironic though that an ad that is clearly meant to harm me, and hurt my family, is paid for by the “CITIZENS AGAINST NASTY POLITICS”.
For starters, let’s get the first few FACTS out of the way. Every one of those judgments has been satisfied. Most of them, a long time ago. Also, the ad has the same judgments listed more than once. A little research would have revealed that, but I suspect they prefer to make it look as bad as possible.
This link is a page from my credit report TODAY. As you can see it shows no judgments. That’s because judgments are removed from your credit report 7 years after they are paid. You’ll notice the only things on my report are two RELEASED Federal Tax liens. That’s because tax liens stay on up to 10 years after being satisfied. But note the word RELEASED.
The creator of the ad alleges that I have no financial expertise and I am not transparent because of these judgments. He could have simply asked me the reason, but clearly wasn’t interested.
In 1998 I started website hosting company called Websytz.com. I had over 3,000 customers and it was doing very well. In 2004 it was acquired by a company in Florida. Unfortunately, they were a fraud. They quickly stole money from the customers’ credit cards, committed wire and check fraud against me, and the owner disappeared. I had worked out a financing agreement with them, and unfortunately did not receive most of the payment, and was responsible for expenses and taxes that needed to be paid. Needless to say that without any income, paying those debts was going to be difficult. On top of that I had personal expenses as well, and little income.
But rather than take the easy way out and declare bankruptcy as some would do, I let the creditors take default judgments against me, and satisfied every one of them by going back to work in the corporate world for a year and through starting my next business.
The judgment that is listed as NJ Credit Union was my landlord, who I owed because I had to leave my lease early when I no longer had the business. Citibank was a credit line, and of course the Federal Tax is the IRS.
Declaring bankruptcy at that time would have been easy. It was before they updated the laws, and I probably would not have lost my house. But I didn’t want to just take out the creditors. They deserved to be paid. I knew it was only a temporary setback, and I was right.
The other judgment listed in the ad is for a landscaping company who we could not get to come and finish the job. We refused to pay them for poor work, and for an unfinished contract. We eventually worked it out with them to the satisfaction of both parties. But I was not letting the simple filing of a lawsuit strong arm me into paying for something that was not completed as per the agreement.
These debts were all from 2004 and before. And while the creator of the disparaging ad might think that it is relevant, the truth of the matter is that I chose to take on these judgments rather than declare bankruptcy and give my creditors nothing.
As for the cartoon speech bubbles at the bottom of the ad., these are lines taken out of context from three different emails.
“I backed off of my challenge to your petitions. yet I receive nothing in return” was an email I sent to all the candidates as a group asking them to insist that I be included in the debate after I was dropped for clear political reasons. I was referring to the fact that I found serious violations of NJ statutes in the way the clerk handled the verification of the nomination petitions, but decided not to pursue it because I felt the candidates should not have been punished at that time for the clerk’s errors.
“Last chance to make room for me on the ballot before I make a mess of the election” was in an email to Marshall Lerner, the President of the WW GOP, who I suspect is the one who is behind this ad. It was at the end of an email to him in September where I was kind enough to let him and Ms. Kohn’s campaign manager Gene O’Brien know that candidate Lauren Kohn had a blog up and that it had some inconsistencies and potentially damaging content. Needless to say she took it down within hours after that, and then refused to answer the simple question of why. My comment was a joke that I had made to him and others in their campaign before since it would be the only way to get my name on the ballot, and it usually ended with a :).
Which brings us to Lauren Kohn’s husband, David’s letter to the editor. This one surprised me. Everyone knew that I had a copy of Lauren’s blog, and that even though it was taken down, it could still be retrieved on the Internet using Google. Yet Mr. Kohn committed a clear act of Libel in his letter to the editor. He, and others, were upset because I published the fact that Ms. Kohn had said that she was “susceptible to fear and anxiety” on her blog.
Mr Kohn’s letter said the following:
—
That was a particularly stressful time for us, especially after we were given information that suggested our baby might have a potentially lethal genetic abnormality.
Lauren noted her heightened sensitivity and described the work she was doing to prepare for our son’s safe passage into this world, saying, “I am very susceptible to fear and anxiety these days, and I think that managing that well will lead to a more peaceful, less painful birth.” Aside from this context, two words from this quote — “these days” — were also left out, drastically changing the meaning.
Fortunately, our son was born without complication, and he has grown into a curious, active little boy.
—
I was really upset with myself when I read that. I could not understand how I made that mistake. Although I have been direct, I have been 100% honest in this campaign. So I went back and opened the PDF file I had of the blog posts. Sure enough, I was right. It did not say that, and never did.
There is also content in this and other posts of hers that show that her pregnancy was going well and she was happy. You be the judge of that.
There was no indication of any “potentially lethal generic abnormality”. I’m glad to hear that there were not, but either way that does not give Mr. Kohn the right to add words and then claim I took them out. That’s just dishonest. The blog posts in their entirety were available on my web site and they knew it. You can’t just make things up.
As you can see from this screenshot. I did not take any words out or change the context. You can read the entire PDF file here.
As for the last speech bubble in the ad, “Unfortunately for you, I will risk losing rather than see you on council”, This was in an email to Ms. Kohn and others in her campaign after she posted a message on a public Internet group in response to an ad that I ran in this newspaper. In her public post she answered some of the questions I had posed, but then added the line “ It’s easy to take a sentence or two out of context and publish it in a newspaper ad.”
She was basically telling a public group of people that I had taken her words out of context, which I had not. But clearly the writer of this ad did.
Here’s the exact context of the email it came from:
—
“You guys keep forgetting something. I am not a politician, I tell the truth and can’t be concerned if a small group of people don’t like me. And I have nothing to lose. I just want to make a difference, and make life better in some way for the people of this town.
Unfortunately for you, I will risk losing rather than see you on the council. It’s nothing personal. You appear to be a very nice person who is truly concerned about her community. But you are far less qualified than me, and the least qualified of all the candidates. You are not ready for this kind of responsibility… The problem is you are running with the two most qualified candidates (on the ballot), and I don’t want to hurt Bryan and Gary. This town needs them on the council.
Please consider resigning your candidacy. There’s still a few days to get my name on the ballot. (40:45-10.1. Designation of committee on vacancies )
Just a thought.”
—
Talk about taking text out of context!
It is my opinion that Ms. Kohn is not qualified to be part of our council. There are many reasons. That will soon be clear to all.
So while I can confidently endorse Bryan Maher and Gary Zohn, I believe that I am among the top three qualified and belong on the council with these two extremely capable residents.
So press buttons 10D and 12D, and then pres button 10 and type in my name. GREG HARRIS
