Pat Noble for Monmouth County Freeholder

Now that the three scheduled debates are over, I thought it would be a good idea to give a brief summary on each debate, as well as my opinions on how they went.

October 22nd- Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Organized by: Ocean Grove Homeowners Association

This was the first of the three Freeholder debates, with five of the six candidates present. Independent candidate Thomas Markowski was not at the debate. Candidates for the 11th Legislative District’s State Senate seat and State Assembly seats debated from 10am to 11am, followed by the Freeholder candidates from 11am to 12pm noon.

Out of the three debates, this was the only one that allowed residents present to voice their questions from the floor. In the subsequent two debates, questions were screened by the moderator via index cards before they were asked.

Due to time constraints, only a couple of questions were able to make it to the candidates for answers. This, in my opinion, was the only negative point that can be made about this particular debate. The first question was about whether the candidates would support an “Occupy Freehold” protest, with Freehold being the seat of the county government. Taking the microphone first, my response began with saying, “where do I signup?” The second question was about job creation, which I responded to with ideas I had on creating a jobs center in Monmouth County, as well as support the creation of co-op businesses. I also brought up the idea of payment waivers for unemployed county residents on the county’s extensive adult education programs, which a few residents told me they supported after the debate was over.

October 26th- Manalapan, New Jersey

Organized by: League of Women Voters, Western Branch Monmouth County Library

Debate at the Western Branch Monmouth County Library, picture courtesy of Freehold Patch

This was the second Freeholder debate, again with five out of six candidates present. Independent candidate Thomas Markowski was not at the debate, with the debate moderator conveying his apologies that he could not attend, due to being sick. The debate began at 7pm and went until 8:30pm, at which time the two candidates for Monmouth County Surrogate debated for half an hour.

Luckily, the time allotted allowed for several questions to be asked to all of the candidates. On job creation, I was again able to touch on creating cooperative businesses, rather the courting Fortune 500 companies to setup shop in the county, as most of the other candidates advocated. We also were asked about Monmouth Race Track, which is presently under state control and has been losing substantial amounts of money for the past few years. Speaking against the current plan of privatization, I instead said that we need to look at racetracks that are very successful in other states, and basically ask the question, “what are they doing right that we are doing wrong?” The candidates universally agreed that having slot machines and other betting games at Monmouth Park would be beneficial to help bring back the racetrack, save the jobs already there, and hopefully create more jobs in the process. Lastly, I spoke in opposition to creating wind turbines along the shore, instead advocating that we install solar panels on all county buildings, as well as on a portion of the former Fort Monmouth land.

October 27th- Lincroft, New Jersey

Organized by: Lincroft Village Green Association

This was the last Freeholder debate, which had only four of the six candidates in attendance. The Board of Chosen Freeholders had a scheduled meeting that night, so the two incumbents running for re-election (Lillian Burry (R) and Amy Mallet (D)) were not in attendance. Candidates for Middletown Township Committee were also present, debating alongside of the Freeholder candidates. The debate began at 7pm and lasted until 9pm.

There were several problems that I had with this debate. First, I didn’t understand why the debate would be scheduled on the same night as a Freeholder meeting, so the incumbent candidates were unable to attend. Second, I don’t think that the Middletown candidates should have been debating alongside of the Freeholder candidates, due to the fact that local issues and county issues aren’t interchangeable. About half of the questions from the audience were answered by the Middletown candidates, yet the Freeholder candidates couldn’t give more then a little rhetoric and explaining that it isn’t an issue that the Freeholders have a say in. The Ocean Grove debate gave the state candidates an hour and the Freeholder candidates an hour; the Lincroft debate should have been structured in the same fashion. All of these issues added up to this debate being less effective then the first two.