"Deflategate" vs "Waymagate"....Town Officials & Police Chief, Cheat the Taxpayer with "Hocus Pocus"

     One year ago, during the week leading up to "Super Bowl Sunday," the Town of Westfield's newly acquired emergency mobile command center and a platoon of police officers  were in Hoboken to stand guard at a street fair while Super Bowl XLVIII was played at MetLife Stadium in E. Rutherford, N.J..
     After the Super Bowl, Westfield Police Chief David Wayman read a prepared statement to the Town Council, and taxpayers, at a February 2014 council meeting stating, "The ability to work with Hoboken at the Super Bowl was just another unique opportunity and probably the opportunity of a lifetime."  A year later, and with the Super Bowl being played this year in Arizona under a black cloud of alleged cheating and an NFL investigation nicknamed "Deflategate", we
now know Wayman's words were a facade, another lie.

Military Vehicles were recently acquired by the WPD

     Mayor Skibitsky, Town Admin. Jim Gildea, and Mayor Andy Skibitsky had to justify to the taxpayers the purchase of a $300,000 machine when all the town needed in the aftermath of Super-Storm Sandy was a back-up generator for the municipal building.  Never before had the police department lost power, in any storm. that a generator couldn't restore.
To make the purchase look worthwhile, why not send it to Hoboken and tell everyone Westfield was requested as part of Super Bowl security?
     It was a well orchestrated show put on by town officials for the better part of 8 months following New Jersey's first Super Bowl.  It wasn't until November 2014 that Mayor Skibitsky would finally admit during a town council meeting, "We were not at the Super Bowl, I never said we were."  Mayor Skibitsky had been pressured to admit the truth in light of inquiries made into the questionable purchase and use of Westfield taxpayer funded equipment in other cities.

     Mayor Skibitsky must've forgotten that he allowed both his police chief and his Acting Mayor JoAnn Neylan to read prepared statements specifically stating that Westfield Police were at the Super Bowl with all its emergency response equipment to provide security along with the Office of Homeland Security, the FBI, New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, and NJ Transit.  Hanging today, in the front hallway of the Westfield Police Department, is a photo of Westfield's emergency response vehicles in front of a Roman numeral 48, making it appear as if the department had a hand in the protection of the iconic event.  What is not pictured is the emergency mobile command center sitting nearby.

Photo by Westfield Leader Newspaper

     What most people don't know is that the photo was taken on a pier in Hoboken while Westfield Police stood guard at a curling exhibition at the "Hoboken Huddle," a street fair for that cities cash-in or "money grab" during the week leading up to the Super Bowl.  Hoboken's security cost Westfield taxpayers thousands of dollars, another FACT that town officials refuse to admit.
     If it weren't for Mayor Skibitsky's relationship with Westfield's former disgraced parking official John Morgan, who now heads Hoboken's Parking Authority and still remains one of Skibitsky's political appointees to a Union County  committee, Westfield would never have been in Hoboken.

Hocus & Pocus

     As the old saying goes in politics, you gotta' pay to play.  In this case, the taxpayers paid dearly for Mayor Skibitsky and Chief Wayman to stage one expensive "playdate" with Hoboken.
TFoTM suggests that town officials keep their "toys" in town in the event the equipment is needed so that it is "ready and available" at a moments notice to service the residents of Westfield.
     Police Chief Wayman once claimed that in 20 minutes he could have Westfield's equipment packed up and on the move from Hoboken, arriving back in Westfield should an emergency arise.  What he doesn't tell you is that he might have to enlist the expertise of Harry Houdini or David Copperfield to pull that one off. Then again, both those magicians were experts in creating a facade much like Mayor Skibitsky and his magical assistant Chief Wayman.