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LAMBERTVILLE: Lanza, Lagay promise ‘change of culture’

Two new freeholders will join board in January

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Lambertville resident John Lanza, who teamed with former county Chamber of Commerce director Suzanne Lagay to win freeholder seats Tuesday, say they’ll set a course to “change the culture” of county government.
   They promise more activism, communication and solutions to challenges facing Hunterdon County.
   They will succeed George Melick, who retired from the office after 36 years, and Will Mennen, also a Tewksbury Township resident, as a team of fiscal conservatives over the last six years.
   They succeeded in keeping the county tax rate low, but “we weren’t seeing a while lot of leadership,” said Mr. Lanza. “All these guys were doing was saying no and no is not sufficient to deal with the problems the county has.”
   Mr. Lanza, an attorney in a family practice in Flemington, succeeded in his first run for public office. He’s just 37, and he and his wife Kyra live on South Union Street with their new son, Mark, who was born three days before the Lanza-Lagay upset victory in the June primary.
   Mr. Lanza said he’s ready to team with the other freeholders to pursue “good ideas,” which may start with trying to convince or bring municipalities to consolidate or share services.
   Areas like road department equipment, scheduling and staffing might be one of the first areas to approach. Mr. Lanza said his first instinct is to use the “bully pulpit” to encourage municipalities to work together, but, in the end, it may be an area where the county should look into taking over, in the interests of eliminating redundancy and overlap, and reducing costs for equipment and maintenance.
   Ms. Lagay, who noted she tried to spur the idea of shared services on the county chamber, said other “low-hanging fruit” of savings might come from areas like recycling and animal control.
   Areas like police, which carry a lot of emotion, she said, wouldn’t likely be approached, especially early on.
   Ms. Lagay, a Holland Township resident, said supporters put her and Mr. Lanza together politically about a year ago, she said. She had been retired from the chamber post for three or four years, and said she found retirement “incredibly boring.”
   She and Mr. Lanza clicked, she said. She provided knowledge of the county and of business, and he gave focus on the electoral side. Ms. Lagay said, “This young man knows more about politics than anybody I met. He had been studying it since he was a teenager.”
   Both talk about “changing the culture” of county government. One of the first challenges they’ll face is playing a role in choosing the successor to the retiring county administrator, Cindy Yard, Mr. Lanza said.
   Ms. Lagay talked about thinking about economies of scale and listening to more people.
   ”Communication on the freeholder board has to be two-way,” she said.
   Of course, taxes are important but not all encompassing, she said.
   ”We need a budget that well crafted and responsible to the taxpayers, but the budget is not all we do,” she said. “We need to make a solid budget, and then move on to do the rest of the work of the county.”
   The Lanza-Lagay ticket easily defeated the Democratic duo of Andrea Bonette and by more than a 2-1 margin. They will join an all-Republican freeholder board with John King of Raritan Township, Rob Walton of Hampton and Matt Holt of Clinton.