Pat Walsh

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."

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MIDDLETOWN, N.J (MONMOUTH COUNTY): Democratic candidates for Township Committee Patricia Walsh and Jim Grenafege called for a departure from the opaque, closed government of the GOP majority with the introduction of a new Sunshine Law ordinance.

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MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): “I have always been an advocate of in-house counsel at the county level,” said Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege. “So it makes sense that I am all for it here in Middletown.”

Grenafege’s running mate is Patricia A. Walsh. She said, “The school district caps legal expenses in the context of its annual budget. There is no reason to tolerate excessive legal spending on the municipal level from the numerous attorneys the township now employs.”

Walsh said she recently saw a published report where Township Attorney Bernard Reilly is paid for 200-hour months and 15-18 hour days. “More scrutiny must be given to each of these individual legal bills,” she said.

MIDDLETOWN (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): Middletown Democrats for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh and Jim Grenafege will be holding their first campaign press conference at the Middletown Town Hall, 1 Kings Highway.

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh said she would lobby to make E-mails written from township-owned computers accessible to the public through OPRA.

Middletown Township (Monmouth County, NJ): The Middletown Committee, led by a Republican Majority, is not getting the job done where it involves fiscal leadership, according to Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege.

“A 7.1 percent tax increase is not what our taxpayers need. We need to be watching every dollar just as our residents are. Years of non-stop bonding and unnecessary expenditures must and will come to an end when my running mate and I are elected to the Governing Body,” Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh said.

Middletown Township (Monmouth County, NJ): “F.E.M.A. has failed Middletown residents categorically,” Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Jim Grenafege said.

F.E.M.A. offered an informational session to the public on July 16 at Croydon Hall. In a conversation with a F.E.M.A. representative, Grenafege discovered there would not be a question-and-answer portion, similar to the kind held during an identical event in Keansburg. “I was told it wasn’t necessary,” Grenafege said. “So I said that, very often in a public forum, questions are asked that can be very helpful to the entire group. So it sounds to me like the people in Middletown are not as important to F.E.M.A. as residents in neighboring towns.”

Yes, Monmouth County has traditionally been Republican.
But it’s been a fickle place in recent times, which went for Al Gore for President in 2000 the same year it gave Jon Corzine a thumbs down in his U.S. Senate bid, where the state’s second biggest paper, the Asbury Park Press, turned in disgruntlement from the two major parties in the last gubernatorial election and endorsed the Green Party candidate.

The 24th district Democratic legislative candidates have all qualified to participate in the Clean Elections Pilot Program.

State Senate candidate Ed Selby and Assembly candidates Toni Zimmer and Pat Walsh all have accumulated over 400 contributions of $10, which qualifies them for a grant of $46,000 each. If they each receive 800 of the small contributions, they’ll get $100,000.

Dems vow to keep help coming for Bayshore town's thoroughfares