Hornik’s Republican Administration in Marlboro is Gopal’s top 2015 priority

Updated: Former Marlboro GOP Chairman Christopher Dean wants the world to know that Councilman Scalea was never a Republican and that he has proof from the Board of Elections. Dean says that MMM is spreading Mayor Hornik’s lies and that facts don’t matter on this site. He said he’s going to spread the word at some meetings he has coming up.

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik

Desperate to be a player and for a victory of any kind, Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal told a gathering of statewide Democrats in Freehold on Wednesday evening that Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik’s reelection race is his top priority this year, according to report on PolitickerNJ.

Marlboro is a Republican town. Year after year the Township’s voters break for Republicans for Freeholder, County Constitutional offices, State Legislature, Governor, Congress, Senate and President.

Yet Hornik leads a municipal government that on paper is Democratic.  The reality is that Hornik’s administration is dominated by former Republicans who left a dysfunctional local GOP at the mayor’s urging.

Hornik, whose father Saul was mayor of the community from 1980-1991, was first elected in 2007 in a race remembered for incumbent Republican Robert Kleinberg distributing flyers implying that he had been endorsed by NJ 101.5’s morning host Jim Gearhart.  Gearhart and Gannett columnist Bob Ingle , then media leaders of the GRIP (Get Rid of Incumbent Politicians) movement, went ballistic on Kleinberg.  Kleinberg imploded during a live radio interview wherein he explained the flyers were not meant to imply an endorsement, but as a way to show his kids that people were saying nice things about him.

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Christopher Dean resigns as Marlboro GOP Chair

Selika Josiah Gore is elected unanimously as new Chairwoman

Marlboro GOP Chair Selika Josiah Gore

Marlboro-  Christopher Dean resigned as Chairman of the Marlboro Republican committee yesterday. Selika Josiah Gore was unanimously elected by the committee members as the new Chairwoman.

Gore is a wife and mother of two teen-aged boys.  An attorney who works as an executive at the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Commission, she was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Scott Sipprelle’s 2010 run for congress and has considerable experience in state, county and local campaigns. She has served as Vice Chair of the Marlboro Republicans for the last four years.

“I’m honored to have the support of my Committee members, said Gore, “I look forward to working with our county and state partners to continue to build a solid Republican organization in Marlboro. We need to focus on fielding the best candidates to bring our message of smaller government and fiscal responsibility to the people of Marlboro.  That is what I plan to do.”

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Victoria Dean apologizes for facebook post

Marlboro Board of Ed VP, under political attack, suspects that a second alleged facebook post is a fabrication

Marlboro Board of Ed VP Victoria Dean, right and Marriem Yousef, a Muslim Marlboro High School junior at the conclusion of the March 10, 2015 BOE meeting

Marlboro Board of Education Vice President Victoria Dean last night apologized for racially charged posts made on her facebook page on February 8, during public workshop meeting of the board in the Marlboro Middle School Auditorium.

The offensive post came to light over the weekend when Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal’s Jersey Shore Insider blog posted a story accusing Monmouth GOP Leaders of displaying racist posts on social media.  The story accused Union Beach Mayor Paul Smith of posting a “rant” calling President Obama “A Communist, a Muslim and an Illegal Immigrant,” and Dean of displaying and liking a post on her facebook page that stating that “America isn’t America anymore!  It’s run by foreigners including THIS RAG HEAD PRESIDENT!”

The Asbury Park Press picked up the story on Monday, attributing Gopal’s blog as the source without citing it as a partisan website as is their custom when they cite this website or other conservative websites.

Smith shared a meme on his facebook page that included a photo of Obama holding a pint of dark beer in one hand and while is other hand was raised with his thumb up. The meme caption was ” A Communist, a Muslim and an Illegal Alien walk into a bar……The Bartender says ‘Hello Mr. President…”

On her facebook page, Dean posted a link to a story about a Waterbury, Connecticut school district honoring the Muslim holidays Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha by not scheduling tests, field trips or major school events on those occasions.  Dean added the caption “Pandora’s box opened” and tagged fellow board member Craig Marshall. Mark Garza, a Texas resident who Dean says is a childhood friend, posted the offensive rag head comment which Dean then liked.

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Goldberg seeks to challenge Hornik in Marlboro

Ira Goldberg is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Mayor Jon Hornik in Marlboro

Ira Goldberg, a 36 year resident of Marlboro Township was in Atlantic City on Monday seeking support for Monmouth County Republicans present for his bid to unseat Marlboro Township’s Democratic mayor, Jonathan Hornik.

Goldberg’s son Brian, a candidate for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in the primary last year proudly introduced his father to Monmouth contingent at Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnik’s rally/convention.

Asked if he thought he could be the popular Hornik, the elder Goldberg said, “I’ve been in Marlboro 36 years and know everyone.”

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Freeholders Address Marlboro Traffic

Freeholder Tom Arnone, Director Lillian Burry, Deputy Director Gary Rich and Freeholder Serena DiMaso. file photo

MARLBORO, NJ – Monmouth County’s Department of Public Works and Engineering is working to address traffic concerns on Newman Springs Road (CR 520), at the intersections of State Route 79 and Wyncrest Road.

“The intersection of Route 79 and CR 520 is operated by the State, but since CR 520 is a County road, I have asked the County’s engineering staff to study the traffic at the State controlled intersection,” said Freeholder Deputy Director Gary J. Rich, Sr. “The County Engineer has sent a letter to the State detailing the results of their studies and suggested improvements.”

The letter requests that the NJ DOT perform an evaluation of current traffic conditions and implement measures to improve traffic flow and safety at the intersection.

“Currently, there is no lead left turn signal onto CR 520,” said Thomas A. Arnone, liaison to the Department of Public Works and Engineering. “This causes traffic delays during peak travel times as drivers attempt to turn left onto CR 520 from State Route 79. We are seeking relief for our motorists.”

A second intersection in Marlboro currently being reviewed by the County is CR 520 at Wyncrest Road.

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Marlboro Council Passes Political Sign Restrictions

Over the objections of citizens who urged them not to restrict their 1st Amendment Rights and to avoid expensive litigation, the Marlboro Township Council unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibits the placement of temporary political signs on public property and rights of way, limits the time before and after an election that signs may appear on private property and rights of way adjacent to private property, and regulates the size of signs and the distance they may appear from each other on private property.

At the request of Councilman Frank LaRocca, the ordinance was amended to eliminate the imposition of a 90 day jail sentence for violating the ordinance.  Candidates, Committee Chairmen, Campaign Treasurers and private property owners now face fines ranging from $100 to $1250 if signs appear more than 45 days before an election, 7 days after an election or if signs promoting the same candidate are posted within 50 feet of each other on the same property.  The total square footage of all political signs on any one tax lot must not exceed 16 square feet.

Matthew Rasmussen, an attorney representing the Marlboro Republican Committee told the council during the public hearing prior to the adoption of the ordinance that it contained numerous “constitutional infirmities, some of them fatal” and urged the governing body to defeat the ordinance in order to avoid expensive litigation that they would certainly lose.

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Marlboro GOP Poised To Challenge New Sign Ordinance

A proposed Marlboro temporary sign ordinance on the agenda for adoption by the Township Council on Thursday evening July 17 has Marlboro Republicans contemplating a federal court challenge should the all Democratic Council enact the measure.

Mayor Jon Hornik, named the best mayor in New Jersey in an unscientific PolitickerNJ poll earlier this month after the Township’s resident email list was used to rally online votes, told MMM that political signs create clutter and traffic safety issues in the Township and that his administration has been working on an solution that protects free speech rights while improving public safety since 2008.  “It’s not just local races, but every level…county, state, and federal.  Marlboro gets littered with campaign signs every fall,” Hornik said, “It is a safety issue that has gotten worse since the Board of Education elections were moved to November. The council has been working hard to make sure the safety and clutter issues are addressed while at the same time protecting free speech rights.  I will support what they come up with.”

The proposed ordinance, which can be found here, would prohibit temporary political signs on Township property and public rights of way, with the exception of rights of way adjacent to private property (that strip of land between sidewalks and curbs), regulate the size of signs to 16 square feet, and allow signs to be placed on private property only 45 days prior to an election or event and seven days after an election. Candidates, Committee Chairmen, Campaign Treasurers and private property owners with signs on rights of way adjacent to their property would be subject to fines ranging from$100 to $1250 and/or 90 days in jail for violations.

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Middletown Calls On Christie, Legislature To Allow Affordable Housing Funds To Assist Sandy Impacted Homeowners

Citing the shortage of federal and state funds available to assist Superstorm Sandy impacted homeowners in rebuilding their homes, the Middletown Township Committtee this week joined Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon in calling on the state legislature and Governor Chris Christie to put the more than $100 million in Affordable Housing Funds that are sitting dormant to work.

With a unanimous 5-0 vote, the committee passed a resolution on Monday, April 21, calling for legislation that would reinstate Regional Contribution Agreements (RCAs) “for the limited purpose of getting victims of Superstorm Sandy back in their homes during this time of need.”

RCAs were created in the original 1985 Fair Housing Act whereby towns with funds raised from developer fees or through bonding could transfer up to half of those funds to another community for the purpose of building affordable housing as required by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel decision.

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Hornik: COAH funds should be used to help Sandy Victims

By Mayor Jonathan Hornik, Marlboro Township

Forgotten among the latest round of finger-pointing and investigations regarding the use of Superstorm Sandy funds are displaced low and moderate-income homeowners and renters who need help. This immediate and pressing need, combined with resources available from communities like Marlboro Township, in the form of affordable housing trust funds, present a unique opportunity for regional cooperation. Now all we need is some action in Trenton.

The funds, collected from developer fees, now totaling at least $180 million state-wide (and which the State has been trying to take for its own budget problems), are to be used to meet the need for affordable housing under the Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel rulings. Those cases decreed that every town has an obligation to provide for its region’s need for affordable housing. We have long argued that the doctrine should be meaningfully applied – let’s build the housing where the need is the greatest.

Yet to this day the planners in Trenton wrangle over rules to determine how towns must address their affordable housing, going on 15 years now, when it should be painfully obvious that the need for our community (and our region) is staring us in the face. Current state laws prohibit Marlboro from helping those communities who are in desperate need for housing assistance after Sandy.  There is no mechanism for Marlboro to spend its trust funds for the benefit of, for example, Union Beach or the Highlands, because there are no rules that allow us to do so. We can’t fulfill a fundamental tenet of Mt. Laurel, and help our neighbors because the authority to do so isn’t there. And why not?

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Hornik on Tommy G Show This Afternoon

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik is taking his not running for governor  tour to the Tommy G Radio Show this afternoon.

The show can be heard here live between 4 and 6.  You can call in to speak with Tommy and the mayor at 732-446-9777.

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