Democrats target Curley in mailer

In the contentious race for two seats on the Monmouth County Freeholder Board, the Democrats have mostly trained their sights on incumbent Republican Freeholder Director Lillian Burry, but today they went after her running mate, former Red Bank Councilman John Curley.

The mailer Democrats sent to voters accuses the former Republican councilman of dereliction of duty in his post on the council, which, Democrats said, eventually sparked the rest of the governing body to fire him.

As chairman of the local finance committee, “he failed to supervise the chief financial officer, causing overspending of $400,000,” reads the flyer, which also charges  that Curley voted to increase property taxes during each of his years in office.

Curley called the mailer ludicrous.

“I was never chairman of the local finance committee, I was the council liaison to the budget,” said the freeholder candidate. “Some people believe what they read in a political flyer, but this only goes to show what kind of scumbags we’re dealing with when it comes to (former Red Bank Mayor) Ed McKenna and his Monmouth County Mayors Leadership PAC.

“They are vermin,” Curley added of the former mayor’s fundraising arm. “They are a bunch of dirtbag skeeves, and you can quote me on that.”

The former councilman said it was McKenna himself who tried to add $400,000 to the budget in question in an attempt to tie Curley to the measure and weaken him as a political tactic.

To the property tax raising charge in the mailer, a flabbergasted Curley said, “I voted against every one of the budgets while I served as a councilman.”

Curley and Burry are running against Fair Haven businesswoman Amy Mallet and retired Hazlet Police Detective Glenn Mason.