Max Ramos, the Republican Party candidate for Township Council, has claimed that Mayor Jim Kownacki violated a “fair campaign” pledge — signed by the four candidates for two Township Council sea
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Max Ramos, the Republican Party candidate for Township Council, has claimed that Mayor Jim Kownacki violated a “fair campaign” pledge — signed by the four candidates for two Township Council seats — by attacking him in a press release that appeared in “Campaign Corner” in The Lawrence Ledger last week.
The four candidates — Mr. Ramos and his Republican Party running mate, Glenn Collins, and Mayor Kownacki and Councilman Stephen Brame, both Democrats — signed the “Fair Campaign Practices” pledge at the request of the Lawrence chapter of the League of Women Voters July 16.
The pledge states that the candidates will not engage in — or permit — defamatory attacks on the character of their opponent, nor will they permit the use of any campaign material or advertisement that “misrepresents, distorts or otherwise falsifies the facts regarding my opponent.”
Mr. Ramos said that in the “Campaign Corner” press release which appeared in the July 25 issue of The Lawrence Ledger, Mayor Kownacki wrote that the Republican candidate had “failed his first test (of leadership).”
That’s because Mr. Ramos, who was one of three citizens serving on an ad hoc citizens budgetary committee, did not speak when the committee reported on its findings at Township Council’s May 15, 2012, meeting, according to the press release.
The ad hoc citizens budgetary committee was formed to review the 2012 budget for savings measures. Mr. Ramos served on the committee with Ira Marks and Marvin Vanhise. Mr. Marks reported on the committee’s work and Mr. Vanhise supplemented those remarks, but Mr. Ramos did not speak.
”(Mayor Kownacki) called into question my leadership,” Mr. Ramos said. “That’s a violation — attacking my character. He’s flat out wrong. By doing that, he violated the fair campaign pledge.”
Mr. Ramos acknowledged that he did not speak to the public when the ad hoc committee made its presentation to Township Council. But if Mayor Kownacki knew all the facts, he said, the mayor would know that “I spent more than 20 hours as a volunteer — we (Mr. Marks and Mr. Vanhise) all did.”
Mr. Ramos said the committee agreed prior to the meeting that Mr. Marks would present the committee’s report and summarize all of their findings. Mr. Vanhise spoke spontaneously, “which may have given the impression that I should have (spoken), but I did not,” he said.
”If you want to call leadership into question, I have spoken more than anybody from the resident’s perspective,” Mr. Ramos said. “For him to say that I ‘failed in leadership’ is a character attack. I already showed leadership by volunteering to serve (on the ad hoc committee) and going to Township Council meetings and speaking up. I won’t submit to those types of attack.”
Mr. Ramos also said that Mayor Kownacki also violated the fair campaign pledge by misrepresenting the fact — in the same “Campaign Corner” piece — that former Township Councilman and Mayor Mark Holmes “(was) a Republican only and only as a running mate of (former Township Councilman) Rick Miller.”
In the press release, Mayor Kownacki wrote that “Mr. Ramos associated the recent unfortunate news article ‘Ex-Mayor Linked to $75K Theft in Monmouth,’ about former Lawrence Mayor and Councilman Mark Holmes with the current (Democratic Party-controlled) council. Mr. Holmes ran for office with former Republican Councilman and Mayor Rick Miller in 1997 and 2001. What Mark Holmes did in Monmouth (County) has nothing to do with the current council members.”
The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office has charged Mr. Holmes with theft by deception in connection with the alleged embezzlement of $75,000 in federal and state money while he was the executive director of the Asbury Park Housing Authority between 2008 and 2011.
Mr. Ramos added that Mayor Kownacki’s comment that Mr. Holmes’ actions in Monmouth County “has nothing to do” with Lawrence Township “most offended me, as a resident.”
”It is disingenuous of Mayor Kownacki to portray Mark Holmes as a Republican only and only as a running mate of Rick Miller when, in 2002, he switched to the Democratic Party,” Mr. Ramos said. “Mayor Kownacki left all of that out. He tried to portray Mark Holmes as a Republican. That is a clear violation of the pledge – ‘I won’t misrepresent the facts.’”
Mr. Holmes and Mr. Miller were running mates in 1997 and 2001 on the Republican Party ticket. But in 2002, Mr. Holmes became a Democrat and ran for re-election in 2005 with Michael Horan, against the Republican Party ticket of Rick Miller and Bob Brackett. Mr. Holmes and Mr. Miller were re-elected in 2005.
The Lawrence chapter of the League of Women Voters declined to comment.
Asked to respond to the allegations Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Kownacki replied that he wrote the press release in “Campaign Corner” in response to a letter published in the July 17 issue of The Times of Trenton. In that letter, Mr. Ramos tried to link Mr. Holmes with the current Township Council, he said.
Of the claim that he violated the pledge by attacking Mr. Ramos’ character, Mayor Kownacki replied that he merely stated that Mr. Ramos did not get up to speak at the May 15, 2012 council meeting. In the July 17 letter, Mr. Ramos wrote that “real leadership (is) on the horizon” if voters choose the Republican Party ticket.
”I stated that Mr. Ramos did not get up to speak,” Mayor Kownacki said. “I am not playing games — ‘tit for tat,’ ‘he said, she said.’”
And of the allegation that he violated the pledge by misrepresenting the facts regarding Mr. Holmes’ political affiliation, Mayor Kownacki said that “all I was doing was pointing out that Mark ran as a Republican first, then he changed (political) parties.”
”I want to keep Lawrence Township moving in the right direction. That’s what the campaign is all about,” Mayor Kownacki said.

