‘Concerned Citizens’ has a lot to learnWhat would an election season b
e without an anonymous flier filled with misrepresentations and baseless accusations?

This year’s most egregious example turned up in Red Bank. A person or group, identified only as "Concerned Citizens of Red Bank," distributed a flier attacking the current members of the Borough Council for looking the other way at an exploding "illegal immigrant problem" that is "destroying the town."

That there is absolutely no evidence for such a claim did nothing to deter the coward(s) who put the flier out.

Borough Administrator Stanley Sickles summed up the contents of the flier concisely when he referred to it as "unadulterated racism."

There is no better way to put it.

While ostensibly targeting members of the Borough Council, the real victims of the flier’s attacks are members of the borough’s immigrant community who are blamed for every ill in the borough, real or imagined.

All immigrants are tarred as illegals committing crimes, destroying the job market and wreaking havoc in borough neighborhoods.

It would be nice to say that there is no place for this in our society or in our elections, but that is not the case. Ours is a society where mean and stupid people have as much right to air their views as anyone, and to do it anonymously.

Whoever produced the flier has to be especially grateful for that last part. They might be malicious and dense, but they’re not so dense as to want their name attached to something as repulsive as that flier.