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Failed write-in campaign exposes rift on Ocean Township Committee
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OCEAN TOWNSHIP - A local candidate's unsuccessful write-in campaign in Tuesday's election for Township Committee has exposed a growing rift among the township's Republican officials and a struggle for power in the administration.
Julie Keizer, 41, hastily organized a campaign the Thursday before Election Day, encouraging people to pencil in her name on the ballot as an alternative to Republican candidate Deputy Mayor Joseph Lachawiec and Democratic candidate Michele Rosen.
She said she wanted to provide voters with an alternative to the other candidates, who were increasingly attacking each other in the run-up to the election.
"If you looked at the literature, it was very divisive," said Keizer, a lifelong resident and the borough administrator of Seaside Park. "Some of it's just downright nasty, and it doesn't have to be like that."
Lachawiec overwhelmingly won, as did most county Republican candidates in the same column as Gov.-elect Chris Christie, with 2,107 votes to Rosen's 823. Keizer earned an unconfirmed number of the 201 write-in votes cast.
But Keizer's campaign renewed bickering among the township's elected officials, with Lachawiec and newly appointed Committeeman Dennis Tredy on one side and Mayor Robert Kraft on the other.
Lachawiec accused Kraft on Friday of pushing Keizer to run against him, the latest move in what he said was the mayor's effort against him since he was appointed to his position in March.
"I think he's the one who set her up to run, and unfortunately she's the victim here," said Lachawiec, whom Kraft and former Deputy Mayor Richard Reilly appointed to replace former Committeeman Daniel Van Pelt.
Kraft said he found out about Keizer's campaign the same way most people did - via the handful of roadside signs she put up before Election Day.
"It's astonishing to me that he is still so paranoid and so self-centered to think even after the election there's a conspiracy against him," Kraft said of Lachawiec.
Keizer also denied the allegation, saying the catalyst for her decision to run came Oct. 29 when a friend showed her a flier from Lachawiec that attacked Rosen based on her alleged personal financial troubles.
The flier featured unflattering pictures of Rosen, and Keizer said she thought it was disrespectful and that she felt the campaign should have a higher level of discourse.
"My main focus was to not to be so divisive," she said Friday, "but obviously I failed miserably if this is what it's turned into."
Tredy, whom Kraft and Lachawiec appointed in October following Reilly's resignation, agreed with Lachawiec.
"I feel like the mayor has been throwing spears and arrows at both Joe and I," Tredy said. "At Joe since he was selected back in March, and me before I was selected just a few weeks ago."
When asked why the mayor would be working against the two men, neither Lachawiec nor Tredy said they knew and directed the question to Kraft.
"What are they, the 'Poor Me' club?" Kraft said, adding that he could not understand why they think he is against them since he appointed both men.
Kraft said Lachawiec "doesn't have an honest bone in his body," and that he and Tredy are attempting "an obvious and blatant grab of power."
He added that Lachawiec has been talking about becoming mayor since he took office, and that he and Tredy went to Rosen with information she used to make an ethics complaint about Kraft and his voting record on the Waretown Town Center project.
"In the 10 years since I've been on the committee, I've never seen so much dirty and back-handed politics until Joe Lachawiec and Dennis Tredy got involved," he said. "So, clearly I'm not the problem."
Lachawiec denied that he went to Rosen with information about Kraft and that he wanted to take Kraft's power on the governing body.
"You know, if he wants the power, he can have it," Lachawiec said. "Who cares?"
Rosen said she already was researching the Waretown Town Center project when Tredy and Lachawiec directed her to information regarding property Kraft owned within the center, which Rosen eventually made her ethics complaint about.
Tredy denied that he did so.
"As a Republican, I would never cooperate with the chair of the local Democratic Party," Tredy said.
Rosen also said that there is a clear rift among the local Republican Party, and that the committee members should either learn how to work together or step down.
"I'm not getting involved in their argument," she said. "If they want to have a bloodletting of each other, then let them do it. But who's going to suffer are the people of Waretown."
Lachawiec also said there is more to the story of why Keizer chose to run, but Keizer maintained that her decision stemmed from a conversation with several of her non-politically minded neighbors who had become tired of the highly partisan atmosphere.
"This is exactly what it shouldn't be about," she said. "This whole thing is turning into a rift within the committee and the club, and exactly what I wanted to give an alternative to is happening. That's very discouraging."
Contact Lee Procida:
609-457-8707
Posted in OCEAN on Friday, November 6, 2009 7:00 pm
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