BECK TO SET UP MONMOUTH STREET OFFICE
State Senator Jennifer Beck will set up a 12th-district legislative office at 32 Monmouth Street, the former Red Bank Borough Hall building (or, one of them, that is) that now houses surfwear retailer Stokaboka at street level, today’s Asbury Park Press reports.
Beck will share the space with freshman Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver, one of her Republican running mates in the 2007 elections. The third member of their slate, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, will hold down the fort in an office in Freehold, the Press reports.
Under Beck’s predecessor, Ellen Karcher, the district office had been in Morganville.
The Red Bank building, just a short skate from Beck’s McLaren Street home, is assessed at $2 million and owned by the Twin River Development Co. LLC, of Navesink River Road in Middletown, according to Monmouth County records.
It was built in 1912 as a switching station for the New York Telephone Co., according to Randall Gabrielan’s “Red Bank in the Twentieth Century,” and served as Red Bank’s borough hall from about 1955 until 1998. For most of that time, borough politics were dominated by Republicans.
The Press also reports that the GOP trio got their committee assignments in Trenton this week. Beck will serve on the Senate’s Legislative Oversight; Judiciary; and Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation committees. O’Scanlon, a former Little Silver councilman, will serve on the Assembly Budget and Military Affairs committees.
Casagrande, of Marlboro, will serve on the Assembly Judiciary Committee. She’s a lawyer in partnership with Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna, a Democrat.
