The wrong choice

To the editor: Every voter in Pike County should be concerned about the inappropriate and highly partisan manner in which Yolanda Goldsack was recently appointed to the post of Director of Elections. This is not a ceremonial job. With tens of thousands of voters depending on the accuracy and integrity of databases and computerized voting machines, the post should now require some demonstration of organizational and technical skill that Mrs. Goldsack’s resume simply does not display. As for public assertions by Commissioners Forbes and Caridi that party affiliation never enter into their hiring decisions, I am surprised that they were not both struck down by lightning for telling such whoppers. But there are other dots to be connected here. In the same week Mrs. Goldsack was appointed behind the scenes, the Delaware Valley School Board discussed the Act 1 referendum which the state has mandated to be on the May primary ballot. This would give voters the opportunity to voice their opinions as to whether a personal income tax would be a solution to relieving seniors and many others of at least a portion of their current property tax burden. According to directors Ed Silverstone and Robert Goldsack -- the new election director’s husband and one of the more partisan politicians in the county - the wording of the referendum is too confusing for most voters to understand, so the school board is permitted to work with county “election officials” on the wording of the accompanying explanation for the referendum. Mr. Goldsack’s negative position on this referendum is clear and yet he will have disproportionate opportunity to inject his opinion into the process. In a year when Commissioners Forbes and Caridi are desirous of the support of Mr. Goldsack and his Taxpayers United group, his wife’s appointment while this issue is front and center is at best troubling. Much work needs to be done on the Pike County voting rolls as it is. There are approximately 5000 names on the rolls who have not voted in this century. A huge number of them have moved or passed away. That’s a lot of room for electoral shenanigans on both sides of the party divide. Proper purging of the rolls has not been done in far too long, and the county commissioners ought to be held to account. I certainly hope that Mrs. Goldsack is up to the task, and that she is as independent as her husband asserted to the press. If not, the integrity of our elections will be the victim. Elizabeth Forrest Dingmans Ferry