In a reprise of one of his nastiest fights as a member of the Red Bank Council, John Curley says that “scumbags” and “vermin” associated with former Mayor Ed McKenna are trying to undermine his candidacy for Monmouth County Freeholder with misrepresentations.
In a story on PolitickerNJ.com, Curley says a flier sent to voters in recent days that blames him for a $400,000 increase in taxes in 2006 is the work of a McKenna-led political action committee.
From the report:
“Some people believe what they read in a political flyer, but this only goes to show what kind of scumbags we’re dealing with when it comes to (former Red Bank Mayor) Ed McKenna and his Monmouth County Mayors Leadership PAC.
“They are vermin,” Curley added of the former mayor’s fundraising arm. “They are a bunch of dirtbag skeeves, and you can quote me on that.”
The former councilman said it was McKenna himself who tried to add $400,000 to the budget in question in an attempt to tie Curley to the measure and weaken him as a political tactic.
To the property tax raising charge in the mailer, a flabbergasted Curley said, “I voted against every one of the budgets while I served as a councilman.”
Curley and Burry are running against Fair Haven businesswoman Amy Mallet and retired Hazlet Police Detective Glenn Mason.
The dispute is rooted in McKenna’s contention, aired at a council meeting in August, 2006, that Curley, as liaison to the borough finance department, had failed to properly oversee the work of then-CFO Terence Whalen. The operation was found by an audit to have been rife with recordkeeping shortcomings that led to a tax increase, but not before Curley was yanked from the committee.
“Why don’t you just take me down to Broad Street and hang me?” Curley said to McKenna at the time in one of their not-infrequent shouting matches.
Curley, a former Democrat, left the council in June of this year after he moved out of town in the midst of his run for Freeholder.
