Ed Zipprich at home on River Road.
On Nov. 4, Red Bank voters will have four ballot choices for two seats on the borough council, now composed of four Democrats and two Republicans.
Both open seats, by happenstance, are held by Republicans: Grace Cangemi, who is running for re-election, and James Giannell, who is not running; he’s serving out the tail end of the term from which freeholder candidate John Curley resigned in July.
Today through Thursday, redbankgreen will post an interview a day with each of the candidates. Instead of transcripts, we’ve got the complete audio. The interviews are between 22 and 33 minutes in length. [See the editor's note at bottom of story.]
The interviews are not meant to be literal head-to-head comparisons. Rather, they cover some common issues — including taxes, a community center and healthcare coverage for the mayor and council — while exploring each candidate’s own experiences a bit in order to shed some light on who they are and how they think.
We’ll go in reverse alphabetical order, starting with Democrat Ed Zipprich today, Republican John Tyler Jr. tomorrow, Democrat Juanita Lewis on Wednesday and ending with Cangemi on Thursday.
After losing his first bid for elective office last November to Grace Cangemi by just 59 votes out of nearly 2,200 cast, Ed Zipprich made it clear to supporters that, undaunted, he wasn’t going anywhere.
And in fact, he continued his work on the borough’s Historic Preservation Commission, helping shepherd through the council a plan to designate the Washington Street area as an historic district; serving on the planning board as an alternate and on the master plan review committee; and getting involved in the newly revived Red Bank Borough Education Foundation, which seeks to upgrade and preserve the 17-acre Primary School property as an environmental teaching center.
A 48-year-old “retired” (his word) office manager for international law firms and father to a college-aged daughter, Zipprich says he wants to use his experience as a budget hawk, combined with what he and running mate Juanita Lewis call their “progressive” Democratic ideas, to help shape the town’s future. He talks in terms of a five-year commitment: the past two years as a volunteer and candidate, and the next three on the council — which is not to say he’d limit himself to one term.
“I believe that it’s important to protect the historic fabric of our town; that we make sure that it’s a viable place to continue to live and work for our residents and our businesspeople, and I think my background as a business manager will lend itself to governing here in town,” he says.
Here’s the full 33-minute conversation, which took place on the back steps of the home Zipprich shares with a partner on River Road:
[Editor's note: When we interviewed the candidates, we did not plan to run the actual recordings; that decision came later. All candidates consented to being recorded, but at the time, they were told that "verbatim transcripts" of the interviews would appear.
One of the candidates has since expressed a concern about not having been aware that the full recording would run. For that, we apologize to all the candidates. But we'll take our lumps for deciding after the fact to use the recordings. We think they reveal more, both positive and negative, about the candidates, than a transcript ever could, and are thus more valuable to voters.]
we need another point of view. All one party will hurt Red Bank.
Dear red bank lady,
You are completely correct. We need a checks and balances type of government. Imagine if there were no John Curley's or Jen Beck's when McKenna was Mayor. King McKenna would have been able to get away with even more than he did. John and Grace seem to have the town's best interest at heart and not their own self interests which is far from the truth with the Democrats in town.
A Democrat Budget Hawk.
No such thing.
The so called "progressive ideas" Democrats talk about always take money out of somebodys pocket.
If you're going to use Curley as an example, remember that he was first elected as a Democrat, and was the president of the Democratic Club.
Which president brought in today's era of hyperdeficits? Reagan, a Republican.
Who was the last president to balance the budget? Clinton, a Democrat.
The Republicans no longer have any claim to being the fiscally responsible party.
I'm not saying that Democrats are fiscally responsible, but I do prefer "tax-and-spend" to "borrow-and-spend."
Shame on you Dan. Since you try hard to project yourself as a man of fairness and balance who relies on objective data, I am amazed at your remarkably simplistic analysis of R's and D's re spending. Or is it a mere accident that you are overlooking the fact that Clinton had a Republican Congress after 1994 and Reagan had a Democrat Congress: since the Congress (not the president) is, after all, the body which controls spending and the budget.
Padrone,
Maybe you have a simplistic analysis as well? While the congress may write the budget, a President who has enough support to avoid having his override vetoed has a great level of "control." But I guess this "control" is derived from the Congress, so maybe you are right. But the President is the leader of his party, and has so much influence that I think "control" is not far from the mark…..unless the are a lame duck guy we have now. I could talk in circles until I get dizzy. Maybe I should be a politician.
Anyhow, this how I remember it: Newt Gingrich was a driver of the balanced budget. He had a different plan then Bubba. At the end of the day, a middle of the road deal was struck. The notion that Clinton balanced the budget is not false, but not really the entire truth.
I find it simplistic is to say that Congress controls the budget. Do you credit the Democratic Congress with the Reagan tax cut? Should we credit the Republican Congress with the Clinton tax increases? Certainly Congress has a large role, but I would argue the President has a larger role. In any case, the last time we we had a Republican President and a Republican Congress, 2003-2007, we got record deficits every year.
I think I was balanced: politicians of all stripes are fiscally irresponsible. I was reacting to the implication by "taxpaying man" that only Democrats were irresponsible. If anything, the evidence points the other way.
Howard Dean, the founder of Democracy for America, balanced his state budget when he was the gov. of VT.
Curley says he began to sour on the administration during his time on the zoning board. “It was, ‘yes, yes, yes’ right on around the table, and it was too simplified, too orchestrated,” he says. “And I knew who was getting the telephone calls, and who from, and told this was a ‘go’ deal or this was a ‘no’ deal.” He does not allege outright corruption, though.
I think the Democratic party gets a bad rap in Red Bank, it's not representative of the national party and Democrats locally are known as "McKennacrats" it seems that the local Republicans are the ones who have an independent voice and perspective and are more in favor for the town folks instead of local corporate interests, that being said as a life long Democrat I am voting the local Republican ticket
Simplistic, Dan?! Of course. A simplistic response to call you on the nonsensical statement you made about the fiscal responsibility of R's and D's. Which, even more importantly, has nothing to do with small town, local politics such as Red Bank. Or was your real motive to suggest Zipprich as a Democrat might be more fiscally responsible than Tyler, a Republican? Given the context of this story, that's what I read into your attempt to connect these candidates to a Reagan/Clinton comparison.