By Allison Perrine
RED BANK – The time for partisan politics in Red Bank is over, says one resident who’s looking to change the status quo.
Scott Broschart, a former Republican committeeman in Hazlet Township, started the Red Bank First online petition July 22 to bring nonpartisan elections up for a vote in Red Bank – a municipality that has been under majority Democratic rule since the 1990s. Should it get to that step and succeed, it would mean an end to political party affiliations on the ballot and what Broschart hopes is a vote for the best candidate for Red Bank, not their party.
“It’s not creating a democracy; it’s not creating a system where the right candidates are running for office,” said Broschart about the current partisan system in town. “At the end of the day, if you want to run for office, you have to kiss the ring of the Democrat party chairman or the Republican party chairman in order to run.”
Broschart’s mission began a few years ago after two former council members in Red Bank who pushed for nonpartisan politics did not run for reelection. The two had about half of the signatures needed to bring the idea to a referendum, but over time the plan “died on the vine,” Broschart said.
Then the borough hired a third-party consultant, Government Strategy Group, to conduct a Management Enhancement Review for Red Bank. It analyzed the operations of the borough from top-to-bottom and provided a detailed list broken down into seven key areas with ways to improve borough management and operations. Its top recommendation was to address the current form of government.
“It was an abomination. It was terrible,” said Broschart of the report findings. “Red Bank has gone through and they have looked at a good amount of the recommendations in that report, but when push comes to shove, they keep ignoring that top line recommendation of exploring changing the form of government.”
According to the report, which is available on the borough website, the municipal government was “not working as well as it could be” and elected officials who served in 2017 and 2018 “acknowledged” that. It stated that Red Bank’s operations as a borough had drifted away from the intent of its original charter and eventually morphed into a commission form of government, “which gives individual elected officials larger roles in the actual day-to-day business of the various departments.”
A commission-style government was popular throughout the U.S. in the early 1900s, “but was rapidly abandoned by nearly all communities of any size as they realized its shortcomings,” the report states. “In the private sector, this type of governance is known as ‘management by silo’ and is widely regarded as a bad management system. Red Bank’s elected officials have recognized that a silo system does not work.”
The report suggested the borough consider a charter study to find the best form of government for Red Bank, strengthen the role of its borough administrator and take advantage of career development opportunities through the New Jersey League of Municipalities.
At the end of August this year, Mayor Pat Menna was interviewed by TriCity News and voiced support for nonpartisan elections.
“I believe that the time may come to revisit our charter after 107 years, and it could very well lead to non partisan elec- tions, but the current petition is unper- suasive,” Menna wrote to The Two River Times this week. “In any event, any change under our existing form of government is a legislative function of the Council since I do not have the authority to initiate. No such interest has been demonstrated.”
Councilwoman Kathy Horgan wrote to The Two River Times that there are pros and cons on both sides of the issue. However, she’s “not sure that adopting a non-partisan form of municipal government would change things much,” she said.
“While the argument that it might entice more residents to throw their hat in the ring to win a Council seat, the doors of our local Democratic Party are always open to give Red Bank’s residents an opportunity to run if they so wish. A non-partisan government would be dealing with the same issues that Democrats or Republicans deal with on the Council: paving the streets, collecting trash, ensuring that our drinking water is clean, trying to keep taxes down, maintaining our parks and recreation areas, etc.
“As the saying goes, there is no Democratic or Republican – or I might add a non-partisan – way to fill a pothole. Councils deal with quality of life issues and that’s what we do every day. The argument that it would take money out of the election is specious. It takes money to run a campaign.”
Horgan said the process of transforming to a nonpartisan form of government is “lengthy” and “complicated,” which she would want voters to clearly understand. The two ways to effect the change would be to elect a charter study commission, which would involve adopting an ordinance for a referendum on whether a charter study commission should be elected. If elected, a variety of procedures would follow.
The other way to do it is with a direct petition, how Red Bank First is trying to accomplish it. That involves getting at least 25 percent of registered voters in town to support it, then getting a “super majority” or two-thirds to vote in favor of the change.
“Residents may hesitate to sign such a petition without having the benefit of fully understanding the process and what the end result would be,” she said. A full report could come from a charter study commission, laying out “exactly what a change to non-partisan government entails and whether it merits changing.”
Overall, Horgan believes “that in the end much time, energy and money would be spent to accomplish very little change. This kind of change does not happen overnight.”
Jonathan Penney, a Republican who ran against Democratic incumbents in 2019 and lost, said he would “whole-heartedly support” the move to nonpartisan elections in Red Bank. “It is clear that partisan divide is as bad as ever and for good or bad, Red Bank is overwhelmingly Democratic leaning,” he said. “But once a group of people, in this case, the Red Bank Democratic party, gets in power and realizes there is a limited threat to their rule, they begin to act in their own best interests, instead of the borough’s. Blind spots emerge as to the town’s needs and the politicians take the concerns of the citizens for granted because they stop having to work for their votes.” He said one example is the council being “neglectful” of the West Side of town.
Penney added that policies that typically make people identify as Democrats or Republicans “are often positions of national politics” and many of it has little to do with local governance in Red Bank. Should the borough bring nonpartisan elections to town, Penney said many more quality candidates would emerge.
“Currently, to run for council, you need to either become a Democratic party insider and wait your turn or run as a Republican and spend a lot of time and effort running an uphill campaign,” said Penney. “Many people are understandably deterred by this.”
But making elections nonpartisan “would also benefit the residents by making the issues facing the town the focus of every election rather than party identity,” he said. “I know that Long Branch and Asbury Park have adopted this electoral process and Asbury Park in particular saw a rebirth of the town coincide with its change in election practice.”
Penney is considering running for the borough council again, whether there are nonpartisan elections or not. In general, he feels “there are so many issues being ignored” due to the partisan nature of the borough’s elections. “I can’t tell you how many great conversations I had with residents in town about the unique issues facing Red Bank, but after I would identify myself as a Republican, the conversation would suddenly end. It was clear that blind party loyalty, not ideas and effective leadership, were the Democrats’ best friend,” Penney said. “I can’t tell you how many self-proclaimed die-hard Democrats I met in town that had no idea who the council members were and what they stood for. But being Democrats were enough to get their vote.”
The Red Bank First petition has a little more than one-third of the signatures needed to put the question on an upcoming ballot. The petition needs about 1,400 signatures of registered voters in town, which is based on 25 percent of the current number of voters who were registered as of the last election, its website states. According to Broschart, signatures have come in from people representing political stances “across the board,” including some that lean farther left or right than others.
Should the petition reach or exceed its goal, the issue will be brought to a referendum vote and borough residents will weigh in on whether they are for or against changing the existing form of government. If that referendum then passes, nonpartisan elections would begin the following May with the mayoral position and all council seats on the ballot; the number of council seats would increase from six to seven. The newly elected officials could then vote to move future elections to November as they are currently.
Mark Taylor, a Republican and former councilman in Red Bank, said it was not an easy win when he ran in 2015. Noting that Red Bank has been primarily Democratic for the past 25-plus years and Republican for about 25 years before that, he said the borough has a “really entrenched party mindset.”
“I was never an affiliated voter until March of 2015… but to run, you kind of have to be,” he said. “There’s no mechanics to run as an Independent and actually have a chance of winning. The party politics are too entrenched.”
Nonpartisan politics would remove the stigma of political parties. There are plenty of voters who want to remain unaffiliated and the borough has a large number of residents in Red Bank who are unaffiliated today. A nonpartisan system would bring in a more vast and diverse pool of candidates, especially on a local level, and would allow residents to have a bigger voice.
“There’s no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the trash,” said Taylor.
This article was originally published in the Dec. 3–10 edition of The Two River Times.
