Beck, O'Scanlon hit campaign trail in R.B.
Challenge Dems on fiscal responsibility, ethics, school funding

Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck (R-12) (l-r), and Assembly candidates Caroline Casagrande and Declan O'Scanlon make a campaign stop at Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank on Sept. 17.

RED BANK - Republican state Senate candidate Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck (R-12) and state Assembly candidates Declan O'Scanlon and Caroline Casagrande officially kicked off their legislative campaign Sept. 17 with a stop at Riverside Gardens Park on Front Street in Red Bank.

The "Tour of the 12th District," as it was called in a Sept. 14 press release, had the Republican candidates making a campaign stop in "each of the three distinct parts" of the district, which includes eastern and western Monmouth County and portions of Mercer County, to speak with voters and the media.

"Today is the beginning of our final push toward Election Day, and our efforts to step up to the plate and take back the state Legislature from the people who have taxed and spent us to the point of fiscal disaster," said Beck in a Sept. 17 press release. "The people of the 12th District need representatives who will stand up to the leadership in Trenton and stop the irresponsibility which has led us to consider the sale of our toll roads rather than stop spending the people's money."

Beck added that her reason for entering the Senate race "was due to the current senator's ineffectiveness," according to the press release.

"As a representative of the 12th District, [Sen.] Ellen Karcher should have been obsessed with property tax reform," said Beck, according to the press release.

"Yet instead, she voted for four straight budgets which raised taxes, increased state spending by almost 50 percent in four years, and basically flat-funded our schools, while sending hundreds of millions in increased aid to urban school districts. If she were a senator from Camden or Newark, she would be doing a fine job. But as a senator from Monmouth and Mercer County, she has been ineffective in advocating for this district," Beck said about her incumbent Democratic opponent.

The other stops on the campaign tour included the Americana Diner on Route 130 in East Windsor and the Freehold Township Senior Center.

O'Scanlon, a Little Silver councilman for 14 years who lost a bid for an Assembly seat in 2005 by 65 votes, said things have only gotten worse in the two years since the last campaign.

"In 2005, Jen and I stood here and talked about the need for fiscal discipline, ethics reform, and a more equitable distribution of school aid to our schools, which had been flatfunded for the previous three years," O'Scanlon said.

"In the two years since then, we have raised more taxes, borrowed more money, passed watered-down ethics legislation which does nothing to solve the corruption problem in Trenton, and seen four Democrat legislators indicted for corruption and a fifth under investigation by the FBI," said O'Scanlon. "The only thing that has changed is that things have gotten worse."

O'Scanlon contrasted his efforts to enact a consolidation of police forces in three towns - Little Silver, Fair Haven and Rumson - with the inability or unwillingness of incumbent Democrat Assemblyman Michael Panter (D-12), to tackle the property tax problem.

"As a local councilman, I've done my best to contend with the flat-funding of our schools driving up property taxes. But instead of waiting for the state to help us out, I decided we had to get creative and find new ways to find efficiencies, so I initiated the study of police force consolidation," O'Scanlon said. "I intend to bring that kind of outside-the-box thinking to Trenton, because after four years of Mike Panter going along to get along, it's sorely needed."

"As a young woman looking to start and raise a family in Monmouth County, I have serious concerns about my husband and I, and people our age, being able to afford to live here or anywhere in New Jersey," said Casagrande, a 30-year-old attorney from Colts Neck, in the press release. "People have been taxed to the breaking point to pay for Trenton's spending spree, and it's a big reason why young families can't afford to stay here anymore."

"While 73,000 [residents] were basically taxed out of the state last year, Mike Panter is sponsoring bills to fund needle exchanges for drug addicts, to ban wooden bats, to ban foie gras, and to send $20 million to urban school districts in emergency funding, while flat-funding our schools here in the 12th District," said Casagrande, according to the press release. "We've reached the point where we're talking about selling toll roads, and he's sponsoring nonsense bills. That can't continue."