Jonathan Hornik

MARLBORO – Mayor Jon Hornik and his Republican guests from the 12th Legislative District look like old pals at this charity ball the mayor throws on a Saturday night, as revelers groove on the dance floor at the Battleground Country Club.

The cover band strains of “You’re just too good to be true” sweep through the ballroom and the mayor floats happily among guests, including state Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth), Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver) and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-Colts Neck).

“Come on, that’s over,” a smiling Hornik ribs O’Scanlon about the Nov. 4th presidential election between Democratic frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.

Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik last night at Greenbriar, where during the campaign season he debated Robert Kleinberg. 

MARLBORO - Elected officials from both parties went down in disgrace in Marlboro over the last few years as the feds unraveled a string of development kickback schemes that sent the town into a tailspin of sprawl.

But now the names of Republican Matt Scannapieco and Democrat Frank Abate have been replaced by a younger generation of politicians who say their bipartisanship is based on bettering the long-troubled town.

Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Victor ScudieryATLANTIC HIGHLANDS - Just one day after the 2007 general election, Monmouth County GOP Chairman Adam Puharic posted the results on his party’s website and noted gleefully that the Republicans had sumo tossed the Democrats out of the circle in every non-municipal contest - with the exception of one: a freeholder match between Democrat John D'Amico and Republican Jeffrey Cantor.

At that point, D'Amico-Cantor was undecided, and Puharic mused about the possibility of humiliating the Democrats with a shutout. But post provisional and absentee ballots, D'Amico squeaked out a victory and became the second Democrat in as many years to win a seat on the Monmouth County Freeholder Board, in a traditionally Republican stronghold.

Already trying to withstand a maelstrom of Democratic Party ads, GOP Marlboro Mayor Robert Kleinberg over the weekend confronted another adversary: indicted bookkeeper Edward Kay.

Following a campaign sign-showdown Saturday, Kay filed an assault-by-automobile charge with the state against Kleinberg, and the mayor and the Marlboro Township Police Department countered with their own charges of civil harassment and assault and criminal mischief respectively.

Marlboro Mayor Robert Kleinberg
How a sleepy hollow farming burgh became a build-out crossroads and earned itself a shot as a sprawl capital may have roots in human nature but surely can be immediately traced to the world of New Jersey politics.

When the daughter of a local market farmer here died in child birth in the 1970s, that death was symbolic of a transition to a time when people not only didn’t work the land anymore but cashed in on wrecking it as at no other time. Surrounded by new development and still deaf from artillery fire in Vietnam, another farmer retreated to a broken down school bus on his dried up spread on the side of Route 79 before he left town. Now it’s the senior citizens clinging to a last shred of space, wondering whether to sell and move to Florida or keep forking over money.

Marlboro Township Mayor Robert Kleinberg this week denied that he used bad language in dressing down a minor at a Bar Mitzvah in Old Bridge.

Marlene Alterman filed a July 27th harassment complaint against Kleinberg with the Old Bridge Township Police Department, alleging that at a June 16th party at a catering place on Route 9 the mayor called her 12-year old son an obscenity, then followed him outside and again addressed the child using foul language.