Middletown: GOP tries to push back rivals in Monmouth microcosm

Deputy Mayor Pam Brightbill and fellow Republican candidate Tony Fiore: Politicker photo 

MIDDLETOWN - In his nightmares, Tony Fiore sees Democrats overrunning the landscape.

He grew up in Carteret, but the town changed with the population influx and the schools worsened, in his view, and government control shifted from Republican to Democrat, giving him Robert Menendez - of all people - as a congressman after redistricting.

Fiore ultimately re-entrenched beyond the border of Middlesex in that GOP-run county to the south - Monmouth, where he has lived for five years, and where he already fears his adopted home town is going the way of Carteret.

"You’ve seen an out-flux of people down here because their quality of life changed," said Fiore. "My town became more inner city, so my wife and I picked a place to live, and we picked Middletown. We don’t want it to turn into that. To tell you the truth, it keeps me up at night."

The 31-year-old Fiore’s fighting the best way he can think of when he considers his deep New Jersey GOP roots and the example of his 97-year old grandmother, who’s still in politics back in Carteret.

He’s a Republican candidate for Township Committee, choosing battleground central to make his stand; for Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vic Scudiery admits his freeholder candidates can’t win countywide unless they win Middletown, where local party control is likewise at stake.

Home to 422,227 registered voters and split between 10,337 Democrats and 10,778 Republicans, Middletown politics right now mirrors the dynamic at the county level created over these last two years, as Democrats picked up a seat in back-to-back elections to get within one of gaining a majority.

"I was the first Democrat elected in Middletown in 18 years," said Committeeman Pat Short. "I was elected the same year (Democratic Freeholder) Barbara McMorrow was elected. Last year, we elected (Democrat) Sean Byrnes to the committee."

That made the council 3-2 in favor of Republicans. Now Democratic candidates, former School Board member Pat Walsh and retired businessman Jim Grenafege face GOP Deputy Mayor Pam Brightbill and her running mate, Fiore, a pension and group retirement specialist for Prudential.

A victory by either Walsh or Grenafege would hand their party Middletown, which sprawls somewhere between its Geraldo Rivera/Bon Jovi Navesink Riverside MacMansions on the one side, and its Bayshore port, dried-up railroad and clam shack tavern culture on the other.

Aggressive local GOTV efforts here could simultaneously drive the potential for Democrats running at the county level to snag that extra seat on the freeholder board and turn the entire county blue.

Middletown Republicans appear more than ready to try to defend their territory.

"We’re extremely excited about the number of requests we’ve had for lawn signs," said Fiore, taking a seat in campaign headquarters on Main Street in the Belford section of Middletown after distributing another stack of signs to a GOP voter off the street.

"We had to order a couple of hundred more McCain-Palin signs, because they’ve been going so fast," Fiore said.

But Bush fatigue and the economic skid that in part collapsed Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz) presidential candidacy into a 13-point deficit this week in New Jersey, according to the latest Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, have local Democrats circling the GOP with bolstered confidence.

"The condition in the economy is beginning to help us," said Democratic Municipal Chairman Joseph Caliendo. "It’s a Republican community to begin with, but people vote by their pocketbook. They don’t pay attention until they start taking hits, and people are getting hit out there."

Fiore and Brightbill size it up differently, of course, and don’t think Democrats can milk local angst over Bush into another squeak-out victory here - certainly not with state politics looming over the scenery.

"They’ve got Bush, but then again, our biggest ally has been Gov. Corzine," said Fiore.

Newly passed state regulations governing affordable housing units and continuing unfunded state mandates, coupled with $5 million in state aid cuts this year, give Brightbill and Fiore what they feel is plenty of ammunition to turn back the Democrats on Nov. 4th.

"We’re absolutely opposed to these new COAH (Council on Affordable Housing) regulations," said Fiore, who sees in the tax of nonresidential housing to create a fund for bulk affordable units an acceleration of all his worst fears.

"The Democrats are trying to urbanize the state, forcing us to build units that will cost millions and millions of taxpayer-dollars," he said.

"Since the beginning of COAH, Middletown’s done an incredible job of creating affordable housing," Brightbill agreed, "but each time we’re ready to sign off on our obligation, Democrats in Trenton change the rules."

Middletown is one of 234 municipalities statewide that is suing the state over the new COAH obligations.

For their part, the Democrats admit Bush gave them a boost. But they say the Republicans for too long have tried to pass the buck to Corzine, and insist local issues more than anything will propel their candidates to victory.

"Republicans want to pin the blame on the state, but our bond debt is $85 million because we don’t have a discipline in what we bond for, and why we bond," said Short, a senior manager at HP. "The way we’ve contributed to the problem at the local level is our bonding debt. We’re obligated here. We have to establish our own disciplines and tighten our own belts.

"In every organization I’ve been in, when we tighten our belts, we become more creative," the committeeman added. "You just can’t throw up your hands and say the state didn’t give us what we need so we have to tax more. You have to cut. You have to be innovative. I targeted 270 line items for efficiency, but the Republicans did nothing except scream about property taxes."

Caliendo complains that the GOP-controlled council bought the Banfield building from a staunch Republican ally.

"They said that renovation of the building to create a cultural arts center would cost $2.5 million, and it ended up costing $9 million," said the local Democratic Party chairman. "It’s next to a railroad station, so there’s no parking. It’s required continuous renovation with cost overruns. They had to tear walls down, fire a contractor. It’s total mismanagement. They can’t deny there is a very serious problem there."

If the Banfield building signified too-close-for-comfort GOP ties for the Democrats, the Republicans counter with the Joe Azzolina argument. They say the former GOP Assemblyman still nurses wounds over local government curtailing his town center project. While proudly supporting McCain for president, Azzolina rampages against local Republicans in part through his moral and financial support of local Democratic candidates.

Brightbill and Fiore argue that Short and Byrnes came to power in part because they are both former Republicans. Byrne’s local GOP roots especially helped him get elected, Fiore said. But their rivals chewed off too much this time with Walsh, a failed Assembly candidate last year.

Short, a West Point graduate who boasts that he takes a tactical sense of campaigning into the field to win elections, has been out there every recent weekend with Walsh and Grenafege.

He has extra motivation.

If Brightbill is the natural successor to Republican Mayor Gary Scharfenberger, Short as the senior Democrat on the committee stands to be Middletown’s mayor if he can get one more of his party members elected.

But, "It would be presumptuous to think in those terms," Short said of mayoral aspirations. "If we get the majority, then we’ve got three people who are disciplined in their work."

Scharfenberger’s weight is behind his deputy mayor - his would-be successor, and Fiore, and he likes what he sees out of their effort.

"Pam and Tony have been walking a lot," said the Republican mayor. "We have a good record. You can count on one hand the number of complaints I get at my office each week. Naturally, some of the things are out of our hands."

At 74, Caliendo watched his hometown of Middletown grow from 4,000 to 70,000 people and change from a rural horse and farm community to a stronghold of suburbia. He can’t believe the way it’s changed, and now after 27 years of Republicans in charge, he sees an opportunity.

"Republicans have run this town into the ground," said the Democrat, just as Scudiery makes the same argument at the county level.

But they have to get through the Republicans first, and they’ll have to get through Middletown, a fact not lost on Republican John Curley, the Red Bank councilman who recently moved here, who doggedly goes door-to-door in his new hometown in search of votes in his race for freeholder.

He has a lot of company street level, some hostile and some friendly, in Walsh, Grenafege, Brightbill and Fiore.