By John Burton
RUMSON – This year there is a three-way race for the two full-term seats available for Borough Council.
Two incumbents are seeking re-election with a seemingly perennial dark horse challenger again campaigning to secure a seat among the exclusively Republican governing body.
Incumbent GOP council members Joseph Hemphill and Laura Atwell are running for another term for the six-member council. Opposing them is Michael Steinhorn, who is vying for a seat as a Democrat.
Hemphill and Atwell did not respond to repeated requests this week to discuss their re-election bid. Atwell, however, did email a campaign flyer.
Hemphill, a lifelong borough resident, heads up Hemphill Associates, a residential renovation contracting firm based in Rumson that has been operating for nearly 30 years. He is serving this year as council president, and has been on the governing body for 10 years. He chairs the council’s building and engineering committee and is a member of the finance committee. His literature points to his work and council experience as being an asset in rebuilding the borough’s infrastructure after Super Storm Sandy in Oct. 2012.
Atwell has lived in the borough for 26 years and has been serving on the council for three years. She has worked in the telecommunications industry for the last 28 years, having worked for some the field’s biggest players, including Bell Communications Research, T-Mobile USA, Telcordia and Avaya, according to her literature.
Atwell has served as the council’s liaison for the borough’s Department of Public Works and the Historic Preservation Commission.
Steinhorn, 68, is a real estate broker and associate and has lived in the borough for more than 30 years.
Over the past few years he has run unsuccessfully for the county clerk and county surrogate offices, as well as for mayor and for borough council in his hometown.
Steinhorn said he is campaigning again because he’s opposed to the Republicans’ practice of the “old boys’ club packing the council.”
Steinhorn said he’s an independent voice, not beholden to any political organization and certainly opposes the ongoing one-party rule on the governing body.
The Rumson Borough Council has been exclusively Republican-controlled for as long as anyone can seem to remember. “I’m opposed to the arrogance that that breeds,” Steinhorn said. “I give people a choice.”
