By John Burton
RED BANK – Just days into the new year, Democratic Mayor Pasquale Menna raised an issue with the newly seated Republican majority over its appointments, and has found an unlikely ally.
At the Jan. 2 municipal reorganization, Menna first expressed his criticism of the Republicans’ slate of volunteer appointments to borough committees, commissions and boards. Menna charged that list of volunteers “lacked diversity.”
Sharing his view is Republican Councilwoman, and this year’s borough council president, Cindy Burnham, who said many of the appointments – both the volunteers and especially those for professional services smack of political patronage.
“I had questions, too,” about the appointments, Burnham maintained.
“That’s party politics, I’m finding out,” she explained. “And personally I don’t like it.”
Many of those named to fill positions “aren’t representative of the community,” Menna said.
“People who are in government should have the same look as your population. I just don’t see it in any of the boards,” Menna maintained.
The mayor noted that a number of the new appointments have connections with the local Republican party and at times close personal relationships with its members. “They’re all tied in,” he maintained.
GOP municipal chairman Sean Di Somma was appointed to the Human Relations Advisory Committee and his fiancée received an appointment to another entity. The fiancée of newly seated Republican Councilman Mark Taylor received an appointment to a volunteer commission. Menna pointed out that there are three members of one family that have been named to various positions.
“There are more than three families in Red Bank,” he said.
Discussing diversity, Menna did not explicitly make mention of race and gender among those who serve on these entities. “That’s a different story for a different time,” he said. “But I’m sure that’ll come up.”
Di Somma countered, “If you look at our appointments on the professional side and the citizen side, there are more minorities and women than ever before.” And that includes naming the first female borough attorney, Jean L. Cipriani, to that post, Di Somma added.
“The mayor is just trying to find an issue to critique,” Di Somma fired back. “Just because they aren’t Democratic Party hacks doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a lack of diversity.”
With this list, “There are more women and minorities than, I think, ever,” said Republican Borough Councilwoman Linda Schwabenbauer.
Schwabenbauer defended the selections, explaining some of the appointments replaced members who weren’t particularly active. “We put people on who really wanted to do it.”
Case in point, she said: Di Somma’s appointment to the human relations advisory committee is intended to reinvigorate a body that has been long dormant.
In addition, there were a number of reappointed active Democrats to positions, such as Gene Anthony, who was renamed as attorney for the borough Rent Leveling Board, among other appointments.
Burnham had issues with the attorney’s firm and with naming Maser Consulting as the engineering firm. The law firm, Gilmore and Monahan, Toms River, is a politically connected one, whose named partner, George Gilmore, is the Ocean County GOP chairman. “I voted for the attorney,” Burnham acknowledged. “But I wanted a smaller firm for our lawyer, somebody who was closer to Red Bank and someone who was more invested in Red Bank.”
She had equal reservations about Maser Consulting. It amounted to one, larger, well-connected engineering company, Maser, replacing the long-standing, large, well-connected engineering group, T&M Associates, she maintained.
“I didn’t work to get on this council to break up the Democratic machine just to bring in another political machine, driven by someone’s political agenda,” Burnham said.
Burnham didn’t say whose political agenda. But the implication is she was referring to Di Somma, with whom she has long been at odds, going back to when they both ran for council three years ago, with Burnham winning her seat.
Burnham was the first Republican elected from, what had been for a number of years, an exclusively Democratic majority. Democrats had controlled the council and mayor’s office since 1989; that changed on Jan. 2, with a now-4-2 split with Republicans in control.
Burnham regularly found herself butting heads with the Democratic majority, even before winning a council seat, going toe-to-toe on a variety of issues.
“Now that I’m not the lone Republican, now we have the majority,” she noted, “I’m still the minority,” at odds with her own party.
Schwabenbauer and Di Somma did not directly address Burnham’s assertions. “I couldn’t comment on that,” Schwabenbauer said.
Appointments are made by a majority vote of the borough council, with the governing body voting on the entire list in one motion unless an objection is raised. There were no objections.
The only appointments the mayor gets to make are for the Planning Board. Among those Menna appointed to that board are former Democratic councilmembers Arthur V. Murphy and Juanita Lewis.
