Jack Kelly

Cites public record outlining unethical behavior and self-enrichment at the expense of taxpayers

Medford Mayor Chris Myers 

TOMS RIVER: Two Republican Primary candidates in the 3rd Congressional District engaged in a verbal sidewalk scuffle after Medford Mayor Chris Myers took his frustration over opponent Jack Kelly’s public work record into the heart of Kelly’s home county.

It was a shift in strategy for Myers, who has mostly played defense for the past few weeks as Kelly hurled pointed critiques of Myers’s record across county lines. Today, Kelly, an Ocean County freeholder, was the object of his Burlington opponent’s counter-attack.

Trying to strike a contrasting pose to what he has described as Myers’s propensity to shrink behind surrogates, Kelly went to the Ocean County Courthouse to directly take on Myers’s complaints.

Myers had plenty of them.

South Jersey Democrats threw a punch at Chris Myers today, just as the third district Republican congressional candidate was getting ready to hold a press conference hitting back at Jack Kelly, his Republican rival for the nomination.

Burlington County Democratic Chairman Rick Perr today slammed Myers as a “pawn” of Republican bosses for accepting money from the “Corrupt Burlington County GOP Machine.”

At issue are two donations that show up in Myers’s Federal Election Commission filings: $2,300 from former Burlington County Republican Chairman Glenn Paulsen, and $2,300 former Burlington County Bridge Commission Chairman J. Garfield DeMarco.

They claim it’s a gentleman’s contest, and in a sit-down debate on Jack KellyNJN over the weekend they confessed to Jim Hooker that they would close ranks after one of them outworks the other to secure the Republican Party’s nomination in the 3rd Congressional District.

In the meantime, however, Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly and Medford Mayor Chris Myers continue to wage arguably the most acrimonious press release war in the state.

Already bolstered by news that his rival had donated money to U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Kelly today lashed out at what he said was Myers’s thin voting record.

"Now we find out that Chris did not even bother to vote in 70% of Republican primary elections since 1997 – including the Presidential primaries in 2000 and 2004," Kelly said.

Myers responded through campaign manager Chris Russell, who targeted 1997, the first of those years the Kelly campaign listed as one in which they contend Myers was missing in action.

Chris Myers"Is Jack Kelly looking to star in a remake of the Keystone Cops?" Russell asked.

"...His latest smear was attacking Chris Myers in a press release for not voting in the June 1997 Republican Primary, when Chris didn’t even live in New Jersey until August 1997 and register to vote in Medford until October 6, 1997," Russell said.

The Kelly campaign admitted they erred in including 1997 as one of the primaries in which Myers failed to vote.

But they stood by the other dates.

The Republican candidates running for the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton – Chris Myers, Jack Kelly and Justin Murphy --  will debate this weekend on New Jersey Network’s On the Record with Jim Hooker.  Sunday at 9AM and 11AM, and Monday at 6:30 AM.

(TOMS RIVER, April 24) – Today Third District Republican candidate for Congress – Freeholder Jack Kelly – announced that his first television is up on the air in the Third Congressional District. Freeholder Kelly issued the following statement in regards to launching the first television ad in this race:

Medford Mayor Chris Myers 

In what is quickly becoming a dogfight, Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly this morning derided his opponent, Medford Mayor Chris Myers, for to date not submitting personal financial disclosure information required by the feds.

The Myers campaign answered that they intend to file in the next few days, and meanwhile took aim at Kelly as a government bureaucrat gorged for years on patronage jobs - a depiction that Kelly strenuously resisted.

(TOMS RIVER, April 23) – Kelly for Congress campaign manager – Frank Luna – today made the following open inquiry to congressional candidate Chris Myers and the Myers for Congress campaign:

“As of Tuesday, April 22, 2008, no record of Chris Myers’ personal financial disclosure, which is required by law, was publicly available at the U.S. House Office of the Clerk. Where is it?”

Ocean County Freeholder John Kelly 

In their 3rd Congressional District GOP primary scrap, Jack Kelly this week pounced on Chris Myers’s claim to having cut wasteful spending and reduced the number of employees in Medford Township.

Seizing on Medford Mayor Myers’s recently released campaign mailer, Kelly, an Ocean County freeholder, said, "the truth is that from 2001-2007 Medford Township budgets show a 45% increase in appropriations – up from $14.6 million to $21.2 million."