Michael Clancy at the Red Bank 5K in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[CORRECTION: Michael Clancy is no longer the GOP chairman in Red Bank. He did not seek re-election and was replaced July 27 by Jonathan Maciel Penney. Clancy now serves “as a placeholder on the county committee until I move out of Red Bank,” he told redbankgreen Monday evening. redbankgreen regrets the error.]
By JOHN T. WARD
Three years after he quit the Human Relations committee over a controversial text message, Red Bank Republican Chairman Michael Clancy mused about coughing on President Trump’s adversaries to “harass” them over weekend.
“I’d rather go there and harass the libs,” Clancy wrote beneath a Facebook post Saturday about protesters expected at a Trump visit to Elberon the following day. “Don’t wear a mask and cough on everyone while wear [sic] a Maga hat.”
The comment was part of a thread, seen at right, that began with a post noting that Asbury Park restaurateur Marilyn Schlossbach was encouraging attendance at an anti-Trump rally.
Clancy did not respond to questions redbankgreen sent him Saturday about his comment.
According to a report by NJ.com, Trump’s campaign fundraiser drew supporters and opponents who “shouted and cursed at each other” about a half-mile from the oceanfront home of the late Stanley Chera, a New York real estate developer who died in April from COVID-19.
According to the Daily News, “cell phone videos show President Trump revving up a crowd of enthusiastic supporters Sunday without masks or social distancing – even though the big-bucks fundraiser was held at the home of a friend who died of coronavirus.”
Clancy resigned from the borough Human Relations Advisory Committee in 2017 over a text message that the committee’s chairman called “extremely threatening” to immigrant children.
In the text, Clancy asked a recipient for a list of undocumented immigrant students in the borough so he could “mail it to ICE,” referring to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
Clancy later said his remark was a “joke” that was “never intended to be taken seriously by anyone.”
Clancy is employed by Medtronic, a medical device company that manufactures hospital ventilators, which are widely seen as lifesavers in the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s work that puts him in close contact with pandemic victims, he told redbankgreen via text.
“I work in Hospitals everyday where i wear the proper PPE and follow all the protocols,” he said. “I risk my own safety everyday to assist in the treatment of very sick patients, including assisting on procedures on covid positive patients.”
In April, Medtronic posted on its website that it was “working 24/7 to manufacture ventilators and create new solutions for increased ventilator production around the globe.”
Elsewhere on the site, the company said it is “committed to finding solutions that are helpful to patients and doctors. Patient safety and well-being are always our priorities.”
As of Monday afternoon, Medtronic spokesman Ben Petok did not respond to a redbankgreen request for comment on Clancy’s post sent Saturday. [UPDATE: Monday night, Petok replied that “Medtronic will discuss the matter directly with the employee, to ensure understanding of and compliance with” its requirement that they “comply with all CDC and local public health guidance regarding the use of PPE in all healthcare settings or any setting where it is mandatory.”]
Clancy ran unsuccessfully for the borough school board in 2015 during a campaign overshadowed by controversy about his eligibility to run. He became local Republican party chairman the following year, and failed in a bid for borough council in 2018.
He serves as a volunteer commissioner with the Red Bank Housing Authority.
If you value the kind of news coverage redbankgreen delivers, please become a paying member. Click here for details about our new, free newsletter and membership information.
