Marlboro’s Proposed Budget Reduces Property Taxes

Marlboro Township Township’s governing body introduced their 2019 Municipal Budget with a plan to reduce property taxes, Mayor Jonathan Hornik announced.  Scheduled for passaged at the April 11 Council meeting, the budget as proposed will lower the municipal portion Marlboro property taxpayers annual bill. For average household valued at an estimated $494,605, the cost for all municipal services such as police, parks, public works, and road improvements will be $1,867.

“The challenge of managing the extreme weather conditions of the last several years continues to drive the Township’s cost of operations. Our budgets have had to absorb the increased costs of snow removal, in particular, which has increased more than 300% since 2007,” said Mayor Jonathan Hornik. “We also continue to grapple with State mandates including an 11% increase in our New Jersey Pension System contribution. Despite these pressures, we continue to deliver and expand the services our residents expect while remaining $1.95 million below the State levy cap and $1.24 million below the State spending cap.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Marlboro Governing Body Condemns Congresswoman’s Anti-Semitic Remarks

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik

Mayor Jonathan Hornik and the members of the Marlboro Township Council today issued a public letter condemning the Anti-Semitic remarks of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).

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Marlboro Schools Get Armed and Uniformed Cops

Marlboro Township’s K-8 schools now have armed and uniformed police officers present at all times during school hours under an agreement between the Township and Board of Education that was approved by the Board last night, Mayor Jonathan Hornik announced.

“I am pleased that the Board of Education has supported our initiative to station Marlboro police officers in each of our schools. While it is not a solution to the gun debate, it will keep our children and educators safe. As Mayor, I have no more fundamental responsibility than keeping our children and educators safe,” Mayor Hornik said,  “Recently in Maryland, a School Resource Officer (SRO), a trained and armed Police Officer, engaged and pursued the shooter and, by all accounts, prevented this incident from being a far greater tragedy. While it would be nice to pretend that that we did not live in a society that requires armed police officers in our schools it is not the reality.”

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Handlin raises $4K for LD 13 Senate race

Assemblywoman Amy Handlin

Assemblywoman Amy Handlin raised $4,075 for her campaign to replace Senator Joe Kyrillos in the State Senate during the quarter that ended December 31, 2016, according to her latest filing with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.  The amount almost doubles what she has raised since her last election in 2015.  Her total raised for the cycle is $8,175.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Handlin’s district mate who is also contending for Kyrillos’s seat in the upper chamber of the legislature, raised $121,075 for his campaign during the same period.

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2017 Predictions

Joe Piscopo

In a repeat of Super Bowl I, the Green Bay Packers will defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LI.  America will be great again.

Jared Kushner will buy Twitter.

The U.S. Supreme Court will reject Senator Robert Menendez’s arguments that constitutional separation of powers prohibits the Justice Department from prosecuting a New Jersey Senator for using the influence of his office in exchange for gifts and favors from a Florida businessman.  Menendez will step down from the Senate as part of a deal that excludes prison and a felony record.

Governor Chris Christie will appoint NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney to complete Menendez’s term in the U.S. Senate.

Republican Joe Piscopo will defeat Democrat Phil Murphy to become the Governor of New Jersey.

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Hornik Calls For Suspension Of Tax Assessment Program

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik and Councilwoman Randi Marder at a campaign event last month. photo via facebook

Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik called for the immediate suspension of the controversial tax assessment program, Assessment Demonstration Pilot Program(ADP), in a press release issued Tuesday evening.

Responding to an “investigate report” in the Asbury Park Press that alleges cronyism, nepotism and ethics violations on the part of Monmouth County Tax Administrator Matt Clark, former Tax Commissioner Daniel Kelly and the companies that won the contracts to provide the inspections and appraisals of all Monmouth County properties that are assessed through ADP, Hornik said, “I am heartened by the recent call by the Asbury Park Press for an investigation of the Monmouth County Tax Assessment Demonstration Pilot Program,” said Mayor Hornik. “I have been a vocal critic of this program since its inception, and I expressed, in no uncertain terms, that the program did not fairly and accurately reflect market value, that it inappropriately interfered with local tax assessors and that it had a disproportionate adverse effect on residential and senior citizen property taxpayers.”

Hornik joins Freeholder John Curley in calling for ADP to be suspended and investigated.

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Hornik orders Scannapeico’s name removed from all Marlboro Township property

Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Honik announced on facebook this morning that he has ordered that the name of former Mayor Matthew V. Scannapieco be removed from all Township property.

News broke this morning that Scannapieco, Marlboro’s mayor from 1992 until 2003, pleaded guilty to charges in Delaware that he raped an underage female relative 50-60 times between 2006 and 2008.

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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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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 making the rounds, “not actively running for governor”

Just as we predicted at the start of the year, Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik has started his tour of Democratic clubs and committees around the state, not running for governor.

The Star Ledger’s Auditor reports that Hornik spoke to the Warren County Democratic Committee last week, has met with several Democratic County Chairs and plans many other such meetings, not running for governor.

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