Former Mayor Ed McKenna, center, with Jesse Garrison, left, and Mayor Pasquale Menna on election night last November. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Former Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna was convicted of drunken driving in Tinton Falls last week over an incident in which his car was alleged to have ended up facing oncoming traffic on the Garden State Parkway last year, according to a report in the Two River Times.
McKenna was was arrested and charged with DWI driving while intoxicated after a one-car accident on the parkway at about 9:50 p.m. on May 13, State Police alleged.
An agency spokesman said at the time that McKenna had ben traveling northbound in the express lanes of the highway in Tinton Falls when his black 2012 Mercedes sedan “traveled along the guardrail, then stopped in a position facing oncoming traffic in the right lane.”
McKenna is alleged to have then resumed driving south, in the direction of oncoming cars, before stopping on the shoulder in the vicinity of milepost 108.
From the TRT:
A guilty verdict for the driving while intoxicated charge resulted in the suspension of McKenna’s driver’s license for seven months, $764 in fines and the requirement that he participate for 12 hours in the state’s Intoxicated Driver Resource Program, according to the municipal court clerk’s office.
Two related charges, reckless driving and unsafe lane change, were dismissed, according to the clerk’s office.
Reached by phone Monday morning, McKenna told redbankgreen he would have no comment on the case, except to say that he would not appeal the conviction.
McKenna, 63, was involved in an an accident in 2009, when he struck a pedestrian crossing East Front Street outside Riverview Medical Center. The extent of the victim’s injuries were not reported by police at the time, and McKenna was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a right-of-way.
In October, 2000, McKenna was involved in a fender-bender at milepost 110 of the Parkway that raised questions about whether he had improperly left the scene before police arrived.
McKenna said he had identified himself to the driver of the other car and left the scene after waiting a while for police to arrive.
Later, State Police went to McKenna’s home to question him but were told by his wife that he had taken a painkiller for a shoulder injury and was asleep.
McKenna, an attorney, served as borough mayor from 1990 through 2006, and is widely credited for resuscitating the economically struggling town from its ‘Dead Bank’ era. He is currently chairman of the New Jersey State Planning Commission.
