Shamong Township Committee member Mary Anne Reinhart, already on the record three times as voting to deny paid leave of absence to a township employee deployed to Iraq, “has compounded her insult to the military and to the individual personally by accusing him of being trained by the military to lie,” Burlington County Freeholder Director Aubrey Fenton said today.

         The employee, part time township tax assessor James J. Renwick, in a letter to Shamong Mayor Jon Shevelew, said Reinhart, a Democrat candidate for Freeholder, confronted him after a Township Committee meeting on Oct. 7 in which he presented to the Committee an American flag that he had flown on a combat mission while serving with the Marines in Iraq.

         Renwick, a Master Sergeant in the Marine Corps, wrote the mayor that Reinhart at first accused him of partisan political motives in presenting the flag and, when he replied that he knew nothing of any political situation, she said:

         “I think you’re lying.  You’ve lied to me in the past.  It must be the training you get that allows you to lie.”

         “Berating and belittling a United States Marine who served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and attributing his flag presentation to some sort of political act are beyond belief,” Fenton said.  “This man, whose life was in peril in the service of his country, held his community and the people in it in such high regard that he presented our nation’s flag to them.”

         In his letter to Shevelew, Renwick said his gift of the flag was “my way of thanking the committee for the financial support they gave my family and me while I was deployed.  Additionally, the flag was a thank you for the support I received from the employees and residents of Shamong Township in the form of letters and care packages.”

         “In return, Reinhart launched a completely unwarranted, classless and bitter attack on him for purely selfish political reasons,” Fenton said.    

         Freeholder Stacey Jordan, Fenton’s running mate, said Reinhart “apparently was not content with voting on three separate occasions to deny Renwick a paid leave while on his combat tours.  She was the only member of the Township Committee to cast negative votes on the matter.  Her mud slinging attack on him is despicable.”

         She said that Renwick “displayed the kind of thoughtfulness and gratitude the military teaches by his public expression of thanks to the committee and the community for their support --- support which Reinhart opposed on three occasions.”

         “She owes Renwick a public apology for her outrageous conduct and, while she’s at it, she should apologize to the thousands of military personnel and veterans in the county for insulting them as well,” Fenton said.