Red Bank needs change from McKenna politics

While at the last meeting of the Red Bank Council in July, I was mortified by the efforts of Mayor Edward McKenna Jr. and Councilman Robert Bifani to ridicule and humiliate Councilwoman Kaye Ernst for her refusal to vote along with the McKenna regime's transfer of funds to be spent on another waste of taxpayers' money aimed at furthering the overdevelopment of Red Bank.

To her credit, Councilwoman Ernst stood her ground while Bifani and McKenna used their bully pulpit to bully and intimidate her for not joining in their squandering of taxpayers' money. Their implication that she was stupid and incompetent for not voting along with them was sickening and appeared to have all the markings of a planned ambush at the beginning of the campaign season.

The smug expression on Councilman Pasquale Menna and the smirk from another member of the McKenna-"McMenna" regime left me with the opinion this was truly gang warfare with utter disregard for the taxpayers of Red Bank and New Jersey. Other than Councilman John Curley, no one came to the defense of Kaye Ernst.

McKenna, Bifani and Menna do not get it. Councilwoman Ernst voted against spending all those taxpayer dollars on another boondoggle study to help the mayor's developers further their feeding frenzy in Red Bank. We don't need a McKenna or a "McMenna" minion to tell us how Red Bank can be further developed!

That money would be better used to reduce our overall tax bill. It does not matter that it is coming from the State of New Jersey as a grant and matched with other funds. In case the regime did not hear, the State of New Jersey is running a huge deficit. They had to shut down the state last month because of the budget problems. We shouldn't be wasting any government funds.

Rather than a scam study, what Red Bank needs is a zoning board that enforces the zoning ordinances rather than hand out density variances that densely rezone lots for developer clients of the Ed McKenna and Michael Dupont law firm!

These developer "friends of Ed" or f.o.e.s are indeed foes of those who live and pay taxes in Red Bank. When a developer gets a big density variance to put three times more the number of units on a lot than the zoning ordinance allows, the board has essentially printed money for the developer and sticks the public and taxpayer with the overcrowding, traffic and infrastructure problems and expenses. That this is good for the law firm's client and bad for the public is common sense.

Speaking of common sense, does it make sense that a mayor who is a lawyer, and whose law firm represents developers in applications for development approvals, would appoint his law partner and his law partner's daughter to the zoning board of adjustment?

It doesn't to me, but it does to Mayor McKenna, who appointed his law partner, Michael Dupont, and his law partner's daughter, Lauren Nicosia, to the Red Bank Zoning Board where they serve as chairman and vice chairwoman of that board. And now Mayor McKenna has Michael Dupont running for council this fall and another lawyer, Pat Menna running for mayor.

We need common sense government in Red Bank. That is why I call for the voters of Red Bank to unite and give the Red Bank government a total McKenema! Unite behind Councilman John Curley for mayor and Mary Grace Cangemi and David Pallister for council.

William Meyer

Red Bank