The former Lambertville mayor is one of six GOP candidates for two vacant Assembly seats.
By: Linda Seida
Former Lambertville mayor and incumbent Hunterdon County Freeholder Frank Fuzo is battling five other Republican candidates, including incumbent Michael J. Doherty, in a contested GOP primary for a chance to represent the 23rd District in the state Assembly.
The other candidates aiming to win GOP nominations for two open Assembly seats in the June 7 primary are Hunterdon County Freeholder Marcia A. Karrow of Raritan Township; Warren County Freeholder John DiMaio of Hackettstown; Bloomsbury Borough Mayor Mark Peck; and Washington Borough Deputy Mayor Susan Wagner-Glaser.
Only two Democrats are seeking their party’s nomination for the two seats Clinton Township Councilwoman Janice L. Kovach, who serves on the Highlands Planning Council, and Scott McDonald, a former Washington Borough mayor and councilman.
The 23rd District comprises Warren County plus all municipalities in Hunterdon County except two, Califon and Tewksbury Township.
Mr. Fuzo, 53, is a vice president of Yardville National Bank. He has been a freeholder since 1990. He served as Lambertville’s mayor from 1988 to 1991.
Previously he was a city councilman and has served on the Lambertville Recreation Commission and the Hunterdon Drug Awareness Board.
"I am the only candidate giving up my current elected position to run for the Assembly," Mr. Fuzo said.
He has challenged the other Republican candidates, four of whom also hold an elected office, to pledge to resign if they win the Assembly race.
Mr. Fuzo has proposed a three-point plan. If elected, he proposes to "root out wasteful school spending in the state’s Abbott Districts, rein in activist judges by making them face the voters to remain on the bench, and make it more difficult for politicians in Trenton to raise our taxes by requiring a two-thirds super-majority vote of the Legislature to do so."
Mr. Fuzo is chairman of the Hunterdon County Utilities Authority and vice president of the New Jersey Association of Counties. He is a member of the Flemington Rotary, Hunterdon Prevention Resources Board, Hunterdon Somerset Heart Walk, Somerset Crimestoppers, Knights of the Vine, 200 Club of Hunterdon County and the Delaware Valley Powerboat Association.
He is a former board member of the Central Jersey Chapter of the American Diabetes Association and a former member and coach of Lambertville Ramblers Youth Football and Lambertville-West Amwell Basketball Association.
Assemblyman Doherty, 42, of Washington Township is a patent attorney with the intellectual property firm of Lerner, David, Littenberg, Krumholz and Mentlik in Westfield.
He was elected to the Assembly in 2002 and serves on the Labor Committee. He was director of the Warren County freeholders in 2002 and 2003 and deputy director from 2001 to 2002. He received a bachelor’ of science degree from West Point and went on to earn a law degree from Seton Hall University.
Assemblyman Doherty said he believes the top three issues facing the district are fiscal responsibility in government, the preservation of traditional values and the repeal of the Highlands Act.
The Highlands region covers more than 800,000 acres over 1,250 square miles and includes 88 municipalities in the counties of Bergen, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren. The Department of Environmental Protection and proponents of the Highlands Act say it is an essential source of drinking water for half the residents of New Jersey. The Highlands Act has designated almost half of the acreage in the region as a preservation area.
"I vigorously opposed the Highlands legislation last spring," Assemblyman Doherty said. "The taxpayers of Hunterdon and Warren counties have spent millions to preserve farmland and open space over the years. Every time an initiative to preserve open space was put on the ballot, it passed.
"The people of the 23rd Legislative District care about preserving open space. Unfortunately, the Highlands Act has absolutely nothing to do with preserving open space or protecting drinking water. It has everything to do with grabbing power. I support private property rights, and I will support any and all measures to repeal the Highlands Act."
Assemblyman Doherty also voted against the creation of domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, and he also is opposed to stem-cell research and abortion.
"I am the prime sponsor of legislation that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman," he said. "I am opposed to activist judges subverting the democratic process and forcing their definition of marriage on the people of New Jersey. I am opposed to embryonic stem cell research because it is bad science. All of the breakthroughs in this arena have been made with research on adult stem cells.
"Further, I oppose the governor’s plan to spend $400 million in taxpayer dollars to fund this type of research. Finally, I am 100 percent pro-life."
Assemblyman Doherty said "fiscal responsibility" means several things to him.
He said, "First, it means that the Legislature should not spend more money than we take in. This may seem obvious to most people, but not to the politicians in Trenton. New Jersey’s debt is approaching a record $28 billion dollars. That’s more than our annual state budget. New Jersey is now the third most-indebted state in the U.S.
"Secondly, the Legislature must distribute state aid more equitably, especially education aid. School districts in the 23rd Legislative District received a total of approximately $135 million in state aid for the 2004-05 year. The population in the 23rd Legislative District is approximately 215,000.
"By comparison, Jersey City, with a population of approximately 240,000, received $420 million in state education aid for 2004-05. Is it any wonder that the average property tax bill in Hunterdon County is over $7,100 per year? We must stop subsidizing inner city schools on the backs of suburban students.
"Finally, I am committed to abolishing the Schools Construction Corporation that has wasted $8.6 billion in taxpayer dollars."
Mark Peck, 36, is a municipal and land use attorney who serves as mayor of Bloomsbury. He is a former councilman of Madison Borough. He is a longtime legislative aide to Assemblyman Michael Carroll, serving full time from 1996 to 1998, and later as a part-time aide since 1999. He serves as a member of Bloomsbury’s Planning Board and is a former member of Madison Borough’s Sewerage Authority and Recreation Commission.
If elected, Mayor Peck pledges a return to traditional values.
He said, "Our state’s social policies are an embarrassment to thoughtful men and women. Our legislators duck, cover and hide from the social issues that define who we are, and who we will become. Family, faith and freedom are the cornerstones of a healthy society, but New Jersey is doing its best to erode our foundation."
He added, "We must return to the values that have made us prosperous, safe and free."
He is "100 percent pro-life" and supports laws against late-term abortions. He favors parental notification and 24-hour waiting periods and is against taxpayer-funded abortion.
Also, he said, "I am opposed to cloning and using unborn babies for scientific experiments."
In addition, Mayor Peck said he is opposed to same-sex marriage and "racially divisive affirmative action programs. I support making the English language the official state language for government and education."
If elected to the Assembly, Mayor Peck proposes two solutions to what he calls "the property tax crisis," which is "directly caused by the state’s out of control spending."
First, he said, "All spending must be indexed to the inflation rate and cannot be increased by more than the rate of inflation in any given year."
Second, "Skyrocketing school spending is the immediate cause of our high property taxes," he said. "The solution is to eliminate the Abbott districts. All students no matter the district, no matter where they go to school should receive the same amount of state aid.
"Currently, Asbury Park receives over $26,000 per student, Newark over $23,000, whereas Hunterdon and Warren students receive between $2,000 and $3,000 per student. Equal state funding will result in our property taxes dropping, while the cities will finally be forced to take responsibility for their generations of failure."
Candidates DiMaio and Karrow did not return e-mail questionnaires about their candidacy.
Candidate Wagner-Glaser did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Ms. Karrow has been a Hunterdon County freeholder since 1999, and she served as director from 1999 to 2000. She served on the Hunterdon County Health and Human Services Advisory Council from 1995 to 1998 and as vice chairwoman of the council in 1997.
She has served on the Hunterdon County Work Force Investment Board since 1997. She has been a member of the Hunterdon County Planning Board Growth Management Task Force on Industrial and Commercial Growth since 1996. She has been a member of the Raritan Township Committee since 1994 and served as deputy mayor in 1996 and mayor in 1998.
Ms. Karrow’s public service also includes five years on the Hunterdon County Mental Health Board beginning in 1993. She served on the board of directors of the Hunterdon Economic Partnership in 1998, as president of the Hunterdon County Municipal Officers Association from 1997 to 1998, the Hunterdon County Council on Aging from 1993 to 1996 and the Raritan Township Planning Board from 1992 to 1993 and again in 1998.
Her service also includes: the Raritan Township Environmental Commission from 1994 to the present; the Raritan Township Open Space Advisory Committee from 1997 to the present; the Raritan Township Agricultural Advisory Board from 1999 to the present; the Raritan Township Economic Development Committee from 1994 to 1996; the Flemington Partnership for Progress Board of Directors as chairwoman of Economic Restructuring from 1994 to 1997; the Governor’s Planning Council on Aging, 1994; and the Raritan Valley Community College Search Committee, 1995 to 1998.
Mr. DiMaio became a freeholder in 2000 and became director in 2001. In 1979, he held his first elected office on the Hackettstown Common Council. From 1991 to 1999 he served as mayor of Hackettstown. He was president of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors in 1999.
Ms. Kovach, 39, is a Clinton Township councilwoman, member of the Planning Board, chairperson of the Affordable Housing and Grants Committee and a member of the Finance Committee.
She also is a member of the county cross acceptance team and the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council. She is secretary for the Hunterdon County Democratic Committee and has served on the Clinton Historical Commission as council representative. She is a founding member and trustee of the Clinton Public School Partners in Education Foundation.
Ms. Kovach cites among her chief concerns property taxes and over-development.
"Property taxes are driving our residents, especially seniors, from their communities," she said. "We must reform this failed system."
Ms. Kovach said she accepted her appointment to the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council without hesitation.
According to Ms. Kovach, "This legislation offers the necessary protection to our natural resources and quality of life in Hunterdon and Warren counties."
Mr. McDonald, 46, served on the Washington Borough Council in 1994 and again from 1996 to 2000 and 2002 to 2004. He served as mayor in 2000.
He was the borough’s first chairman of a downtown revitalization committee and served on several other committees, among them sewer, tax assessor hiring, community sign and public defender hiring. He is employed by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.
Mr. McDonald is proposing the creation of a "Suburban Enterprise Zone."
He said, "This zone would be similar to an ‘Urban Enterprise Zone.’ It would not require a certain population or blighted designation that a UEZ requires. The SEZ would assist small downtown businesses compete with the large box discount store. The SEZ would need to have professional management like a business improvement district or Downtown New Jersey require."
Downtown New Jersey is an organization founded in 1988 to promote downtown revitalization throughout the state.
Mr. McDonald said, "There would also need to be a limit on the size of stores in this zone. After all, we are trying to give an advantage over large box stores. The sales tax in the SEZ would be 1.5 points below the normal state sales tax. A half-point of the tax would go back to the district’s management corporation, further decreasing costs for the small business."
Mr. McDonald said he, too, would target government spending.
"Current government spending has been out of control for a long time," he said. "The popular recommended fixes are nothing more than shortsighted bandages. We need bold, long-term solutions for this at all levels of government.
"The states of California, Texas and Florida are merging their departments of insurance and cutting costs not only for their taxpayers, but for insurance companies also. This reduces spending by not duplicating services and reduces insurance costs because the insurance companies have a smaller regulatory compliance department. New Jersey should lead an effort like this in the Northeast."

