MIDDLETOWN — On the Middletown ballot this fall are four candidates vying for two three-year terms on the Township Committee.
On the Republican ticket, incumbents Mayor Stephanie Murray and Committeeman Anthony Fiore are seeking to retain their seats on the all-Republican committee.
Across the aisle, Democratic challengers George Mardinly, an attorney at Mardinly Law, and Patrick Short, former committeeman and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, will try to bring a two-party perspective to Middletown’s government in the Nov. 4 election.
Fiore, who has served on the committee since 2009, said he decided to run again to help continue the trend of shrinking government that the Township Committee has sought to achieve.
“We’ve done a lot of great things: streamlining government, cutting spending and getting budgets where they need to be,” he said.
According to Fiore, pressuring the federal government to continue helping to rebuild and mitigate the Bayshore area and bringing more ratables into town are high priorities moving forward.
“We need to continue the constant pressure on our legislative leaders both congressionally and in the state Legislature,” he said.
In terms of attracting more ratables, Fiore said marketing Middletown’s central location and access to mass transit is tantamount, and he suggested revitalizing the Route 36 corridor over the next few years, as well.
Murray, who is running for a second term, said she decided to seek re-election because she enjoyed serving for the past three years and believes there is still a lot of work left unfinished.
“I’m still very motivated and interested in finishing the work that we’ve started going forward,” she said.
The committee has continued to fight rising flood insurance premiums caused by new flood maps drawn up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Murray said.
“We just had a meeting with FEMA last week, and we’re working on a program with them so they can reassess … [North Middletown] and other towns in the Bayshore to make sure that they do get some credit for the mitigation systems that they do have in place,” she said.
According to Murray, issues facing Middletown are numerous because of its size, but a universal concern is taxes, which she said could be controlled through expanding shared services and cutting wasteful spending.
Democratic challenger Short agrees that the issues vary across neighborhoods in Middletown. He said he is running to help bring another voice to the committee to help raise new questions about those issues.
“Middletown has been ruled by one party for a very, very long time,” Short said. “ … I’m more concerned that there’s only one party affiliation than which party it is.”
In 2006, Short was elected to the committee as the sole Democrat, where he sought to raise questions that he said often went unasked.
He said the “larger picture” is bringing different perspectives to the committee through party diversity.
According to Short, some pressing issues facing Middletown that demand immediate attention include the Bayshore recovery, reducing traffic in Lincroft and finishing the incomplete bridge on Bay Avenue.
Mardinly echoed his running mate’s point of view, emphasizing what he said was the need to break the single-party dominance of the Township Committee.
“Any good government is based on the diversity of opinion,” he said.
One of the universal concerns across all of Middletown’s neighborhoods remains the balance between investment in infrastructure and controlling taxes, according to Mardinly.
“If any of these things are going to be attended to in addition to all of the ongoing expenditures, it all comes from tax money,” he said.
In order to ensure the township’s taxes remain stable, Mardinly said it is important to prioritize spending and make decisions based on facts and data.
“You have to look at the numbers and the priorities, and then go from there,” he said. “The goal here is to work together, see what the economics are, and then see what can be addressed and what needs to be addressed in a sensible way.”