Marlboro mayoral race continues to be hot

Jonathan Hornik, post debate The after-effects of over-development still plague Marlboro, which became a feeding trough for numerous corrupt officials and in the process ballooned its population by double over 20 years.

Now with what little space is left, this town of 43,000 is trying to find the right place to satisfy its state COAH (Council on Affordable Housing) obligation - something the town’s so-called public servants in the past avoided. The biggest policy difference between Republican Mayor Robert Kleinberg and his Democratic challenger Jonathan Hornik is over where to build that glut of units.

Kleinberg sees an old farm at the intersection of Route 520 and 79 as an opportunity to build 187 units. Arguing that such a plan would still leave the township 281 units short, Hornik prefers saving the farm and instead developing affordable housing units on one of the town’s 11 junkyards.

While their larger-than-life faces adorn billboards on Route 9, Hornik has run the more aggressive campaign, hitting Kleinberg from all sides mostly with the argument that the rough-hewn Kleinberg simply isn’t suited to be mayor. A 37-year old attorney and family man, Hornik has received a lot of support from the Democratic State Committee, and has enjoyed the fund-raising backing of state Chairman Joseph Cryan.

There’s no love lost here, that was clear from the outset. They looked like men in separate holding cells at the start of their debate in front of a standing-room-only crowd in Greenbriar on Halloween night, the strain of an attack mail barrage writ large on Kleinberg’s brow.

"They were making fun of my daughter on the school bus this morning," said the mayor, a chiropractor who's originally from Brooklyn. He held up a Democratic Party mailer that shows a picture of him against a haunted mansion background with bats flapping around and a punch list of grievances, including the charge that he tried to run over someone in his car.

Kleinberg set the record straight.

"That guy they’re saying I tried to run over was Eddie Kay," said Kleinberg. "That coward and admitted felon filed multiple ethics complaints against me, and yet the U.S. Attorney took him by the ear and told him he was not allowed around me."

Kay, and two other Marlboro miscreants, Steven Meiterman and his brother Bernard, earlier this week pled guilty in federal court to bribing Frank Abate, former executive director of the Western Monmouth Utilities Authority.

Kleinberg held up the newspaper with the headline on it, but Hornik said it was another example of the mayor trying to take credit for fighting crime when all he is doing is complying with subpoenas issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Hornik, son of the late Marlboro mayor Saul Hornik, admitted with emotion that his father made mistakes in contributing to the town’s over-development, but berated Kleinberg for suggesting that the elder Hornik was responsible for the morass.

"I have thick skin like my father," said Hornik. "It is indecent that you continue to do this."

Corruption has stained both parties here with former mayor Matt Scannapieco, a Republican, and Abate, a Democrat, arguably the most infamous public nuisances. Both Kleinberg and Hornik have tried in this campaign to demonstrate their independence from the past.

Taking questions from the Greenbriar PAC Committee, Kleinberg depicted his opponent as young and naive with his punch list of tax reduction suggestions, while Hornik said if elected he would take responsibility and not try to take credit for everything that’s going on in the town - in contrast to Kleinberg.

Hornik said if elected he would hire a grant writer and explore creative ways of tapping into state and federal dollars in order to help relieve the local tax burden.

Kleinberg said given the town’s recent history, if the best the Democrats can do is go after his personal life and pester him for burnishing his record, he’s doing all right.

"When the FBI came in here I reacted like a guy in a burning building who looks up and sees firefighters kicking in the front door," said the mayor. Hornik’s point is that at a critical time when corruption had caved in the town, Kleinberg just wasn’t strong or critical enough.