interested candidates
for November election
Republican leader seeks
interested candidates
for November election
By clare MARie celano
Staff Writer
Rob Nixon
FREEHOLD — At least one local Republican is taking it upon himself to contact fellow party members to renew hope, spark interest and ask them to join in helping the party to once again be represented in town.
Rob Nixon, chairman of the Freehold Republican Party, doesn’t want to waste any time and so he is planning to hold a meeting next week to gather together Republicans who are interested in getting involved in the business of the town.
"The purpose of the meeting is to appeal to the active Republicans in the town to get back to engaging in the activities of the Republican Party of Freehold," Nixon said.
Nixon added that he also wants to appeal to "a good group of people who may not be active, but who believe in voting Republican."
He said he believes there are things in the borough that need changing.
"People need to be asked to join things," Nixon explained.
"No one has been asked in the past. I’m asking people. No one is just going to show up on the doorstep. They need to be asked."
Saying that he couldn’t perform this feat by himself, Nixon is arranging the meeting to gather people with a common interest to join him.
The meeting was scheduled to be held on Feb. 19 at the Freehold Gardens Hotel, Freehold Township, at 7:30 p.m.
At present, all of the borough’s elected officials are Democrats. That includes Mayor Michael Wilson and Borough Council members Sharon Shutzer, Michael Toubin, Robert Crawford, Michael DiBenedetto, Kevin Coyne and Kevin Kane.
The mayor’s seat held by Wilson and the council seats held by Shutzer and Toubin will be up for grabs in the November election.
"We as an interested people have an obligation to run for political office in the town," he said.
"We’ll take a look at the seats that are up and see who is interested and see where that takes us."
Nixon said that not only Republicans, but also people who "pay attention to what’s going on in the town," have seen that in the past Republicans have made significant good proposals to council, which he said had been ignored.
Citing overcrowding in some residential units as one issue that his party addressed five year sago, Nixon said that "complaints were ignored until they became town emergencies."
"We spoke in 1999 when Rich Daesener and Peter De Fonzo ran for office. We knew that serious social problems would arise from this issue, and we felt that the landlords were also taking unfair advantage of the Spanish-speaking population. Nothing was done about it then," Nixon said. "Now it’s as if suddenly everyone has finally seen the light."
He added that borough recreation was also an issue that Republicans tried to address without success.
Saying Daesen-er went to state officials to appeal for funds to fix the town’s parks because borough officials wouldn’t listen, he said Daesener managed to secure state funding that was used to help fix Veterans Park.
"We think that people should be aware of these things. We need someone at the table who is not part of the ‘same old, same old,’ " Nixon said. "Rich tried his best to change the way (the council) did business, but they did their best to shut him out.
"We need representation that can serve as a counter, a different voice and with a different perspective," Nixon explained.
"Everyone should not always be agreeing. If everyone always agrees, maybe the government is not doing what it should be doing. We need an alternate perspective to see that tax dollars are used wisely and to see that services are performed well."
Nixon said he’s interested in speaking with anyone who might want to run for office.
One thing that concerns Nixon is his worry that interested people may not come forward because they may feel they will not be able to have a say in government.
"Winning is cyclical," he said.
"We were in the majority in the early 1990s, then we slowly lost our seats," Nixon said, adding that by 1997 the Republicans had no one left on the council.
"I want to be positive about where we are heading," Nixon said. "This is a great town with a great group of people. I don’t want to look back; I want to look forward."
Nixon said he wanted to dispel what he calls a "myth."
"It’s a myth that Republicans don’t win in Freehold," Nixon said.
"Congressman Chris Smith wins, (state) Sen. John Bennett wins, (Monmouth County Freeholder) Ted Narozanick wins and (state Assemblywoman) Clare Farragher wins. They win year after year," he said.
"What we need to do is to help to translate the support for those people to our local candidates. That’s our challenge," Nixon added.