After refuting, point-by-point, Boteach's attacks on public workers in the city, Sparanese calls out what's really behind these 'gale force' attacks on state and local workers like librarians, 911 operators and nurses:

In my view, this wealthy group is slandering all city workers in order to try to recoup the money they lost due to the greed and irresponsibility of bankers and the financial industry, not city employees. It is not our fault that their property values (might have) declined; I own a house in Englewood too and it is undoubtedly the same for me. I have to laugh when I hear that "Englewood's insane taxes are only affordable by the superrich." The fact is that of the 70 Bergen County communities, 42 have higher tax rates than Englewood.

Our taxes fund our city services and our public schools, and they are spread proportionately according to the value of the properties that we own. The problem is that the "superrich" and the "merely-rich" want to renege on paying their fair share to maintain a full-service community for all. If they can't shift the burden to others by challenging their own tax assessments, they move to attacking public workers.

It is mean-spirited for people who have multi-million dollar homes to target people who make 40, 50 and 60 thousand dollar salaries. Their alternative to paying their current assessment is to move to a cheaper ward -- consider the Third Ward where taxes are more affordable -- or to one of those communities around us with fewer city services. The real estate revaluation several years ago resulted in the wealthier side of Englewood finally starting to carry its own weight in taxes. The affluent of Englewood cannot have their cake and eat it too.

Many of us who moved to Englewood did so because we want to live in a full-service community. We do not "divide our time" between "Englewood and Miami Beach" and we are not in the forefront of those demanding the punitive austerity which is already decimating the library.

But Sparanese doesn't stop there. Often overlooked in the manufactured war on public services is the blurring of public worker pay. The media and blogs often confuse management salaries with union member salaries - lumping together six-figure salaries of agency heads with school cafeteria workers making $24,000 a year.

If police overtime is the problem, then get city management to deal reasonably with that. If high management salaries are the problem, put them under the microscope. Stop painting every city worker, every public worker, every union member with the same brush, as if we are the ones responsible for the economic downturn. We aren't the greedy ones.

As a person who will never get rich working for the City of Englewood, it seems to me that Rabbi Boteach is proposing a form of wealth redistribution that would put more money in his pocket by taking it directly out of mine. There is a gale force wind against public workers in New Jersey which Christie started, and which Rabbi Boteach, the like-minded members of FAST, and the Tea Party types, are all hoping will blow benefits their way. It looks like class war to me, and I, for one, will not surrender without firing back.

This Thanksgiving, we're thankful that Sparanese and so many others are refusing to surrender what remains of quality public services in America. By joining together in our communities, we'll have a much better chance of turning around these misleading attacks on public services, and instead, of working together to create a fair economy.