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COUNTY: Freeholder chairman reflects on 2014 challenges

Koontz reflects on his political past, the role of the freeholder board and the challenges the state’s capital city is wrestling with from high crime to alleged government corruption.

by Philip Sean Curran, Packet Media Group
Andrew Koontz looks like a college professor, dressed in dark corduroys, black shoes and a sports coat over what appears to be either a sweater or sweater vest.
   Friday afternoon, the erstwhile borough councilman turned Mercer County freeholder is holding forth in a local coffee shop two weeks after being named chairman of the seven-member, all Democratic freeholder board.
   ”I’ve got a big year ahead of me,” he said as music plays inside the Small World Coffee on Nassau Street.
   In a nearly 45-minute interview, he reflected on his political past, the role of the freeholder board and the challenges the state’s capital city is wrestling with from high crime to alleged government corruption.
   He is firm that freeholders take seriously their role of fiscal watchdog. He said there is a cordial, respectful relationship between the board and County Executive Brian M. Hughes.
   ”We’re not there to rubber-stamp his budget by any means,” Mr. Koontz said. “We don’t try to step on any of his executive prerogatives, and I don’t think he tries to step on any of our legislative prerogatives.”
   He feels county government cannot sit idly by while things continue to deteriorate in Trenton. He said the county prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices have stepped up to help in public safety in a city that had a record 37 murders in 2013.
   ”It does become a countywide issue if the public safety situation in Trenton deteriorates to a certain extent that the crime starts to go across the border,” he said. “I think if you talk to border communities in Ewing, Lawrence, Hamilton, they’re very, very concerned.”
   Last year, Gov. Chris Christie suggested a regional police force be created to deal with the problems in Trenton like was done in Camden.
   Asked his view of a possible countywide police force, Mr. Koontz replied, “I think I would have to think about it. I think I can understand the point of view from both sides.”
   On one hand, it certainly could lead to costs going down, he said, but mayors are reluctant to give up their local police departments.
   Yet Trenton’s problems are not just unsafe streets. Mayor Tony Mack, a former freeholder, is on trial for corruption.
   Mr. Koontz feels the upcoming mayoral and council elections in Trenton are critical to get “ a responsible political government back in place in Trenton.” He is supporting Walker M. Worthy Jr. for mayor.
   Mr. Koontz grew up in a Democratic family in Chatham Borough in Morris County, a Republican redoubt that offered little prospects for a Democrat in local government.
   ”It wasn’t a good place for a Democrat to try and get ahead in local issues,” he said.
   He would find just the reverse in the community he would relocate to in the early 1990s.
   Now 46, he moved to Princeton at the end of 1992 — wanting to live in a place he could get around without a car.
   ”Princeton’s improved tremendously since 1992 in that respect. But even back then, it was still a walkable community,” he said.
   In 1994, shortly after moving here, he got involved in the Princeton Community Democratic Organization. He met then-Borough Mayor Marvin Reed and members of the Princeton Council. He would work on Reed Gusciora’s Assembly campaign in 1995.
   ”The philosophy of the Democratic Party — the basic philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number of people — is one that I agree with,” he said when asked why he is a Democrat.
   Beginning in 1997 when he was only 29, he would start the first of 11 years as the chairman of the municipal Democratic Party. Later, he would sit on the Borough Council from 2003 to 2010, a post that required patience and the ability to work with people.
   ”I think working in Princeton is always a challenge,” he said, “because we’re a community of strong opinions and strong wills. It’s a community that has a lot of strengths in terms of knowledge and intelligence, I think. And when you get strong, willful, intelligent people together, it’s a bit like herding cats.”
   Mr. Koontz, a graduate of New York University, who studied film and television, spent the first part of his professional career working in New York. He would become a TV editor, eventually landing a job at CBS that he stayed at for about 10 years. As his involvement in politics grew, he had his eye on running for freeholder.
   ”It didn’t really work professionally to be working in New York City anymore because you spend four hours of your day, almost every day, commuting,” said Mr. Koontz, now a film and television teacher at Hightstown High School.
   He felt the freeholder board was his “natural next step.”
   In his role as municipal chairman, he got involved with other Democratic bigwigs around the county. He won his first term on the freeholder board in 2010. He was reelected last year.
   At the freeholders reorganization meeting Jan.3, he was named freeholder chairman, a job that has more responsibility. He is in much more contact with the county administration. He is away a lot. His wife, Laurie Harmon, liked it better when he was a borough councilman.
   ”I am around the county almost as if I was still up for election,” he said. “It’s a big county. It’s a lot to get around.”
   He is coy about what political aspirations he has beyond freeholder.
   ”I like to sort of focus on one thing at a time,” he said. “I don’t really know.”