Freddie Boynton, in blue shirt, looks on as Mayor Pasquale Menna unveils a plaque honoring him at Johnny Jazz Park. (Photo above by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A two-time Golden Gloves champ, Freddie Boynton didn’t quit fighting after his professional boxing career ended in the 1980s.
Instead, he got into a truck, and found ways to fight for his neighbors on Red Bank’s West Side.
Regular attendees of the Red Bank council’s twice-monthly meetings know Freddie Boynton for his sparring sessions with the governing body over truck safety, storm sewer maintenance and issues particular to the West Side. But Boynton was once an actual pugilist, and later this month, he’ll be inducted into the New Jersey Amateur Olympic Boxing Hall of Fame.
Freddie Boynton and members of the Celestial Lodge had a beef to air about a block party. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It hadn’t happened in Council President Art Murphy’s seven years sitting on the Special Events Committee, and Mayor Pasquale Menna said he’s never seen it in his two decades in Red Bank government.
But a clogged calendar and miscommunication between two West Side groups is pushing the council to tighten up its processes to grant special event requests.
It came to a head Wednesday night, when members of the two groups locked horns over rights for coveted street space next month, and prompted the council, hat in hand, to ask each for a little help.
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Freddie Boynton might as well have laced up his old boxing gloves for this face-off.
The former boxer, who’s taken a role in retirement as a voice of Red Bank’s West Side, didn’t pull any punches when borough and elected officials made a trip to the Celestial Lodge Tuesday afternoon to address a grab bag of concerns from residents. But nearly an hour was dominated by one topic access to Count Basie Fields and Boynton and other residents, on the way to a compromise on extending the park’s hours, used Administrator Stanley Sickels and elected officials as punching bags for criticism.
“Our children are being locked out,” Boynton, a former borough employee, said. “We’re being treated like we’re animals over here.”