History May Be Made on June 5th in Freehold Borough

June 5th just may become a truly historic date in Freehold Borough if the chips fall the right way. Already, the town has its first contested primary in decades with Democrat Dan Xavier competing for his party's nomination with long time incumbent Councilwoman Sharon Shutzer and newcomer, (Freehold) old timer Ronald Griffiths.

Young family-man Xavier is bucking the local party's trend to organizationally choose their nominees each year. Neither the Freehold Borough Democrats or Republicans have supported the practice of encouraging interested individuals to throw their hats in the ring for the local electorate to decide. We all can decide if this is a good or not so good practice.

Should not running for a role in local government be an individual's choice and left up to the voters to decide? If not, why?  

Handpicking candidates to seek a nomination seems much less democratic than closing the gates to potential cronyism and opening the door to free choice. There is absolutely no downside to encouraging multiple interested people to enter a primary race and infuse new blood into a party's rank and file - no downside at all. Freehold Borough, in particular, needs this. Most other towns already have this! The makeup of our town is rapidly changing ethnically, as well as with regard to many old families being replaced by even more young families and others, who just might put down permanent roots (rather than aspire to move to surrounding towns) if allowed to be represented on the governing body and help create a Freehold Borough that better suits their lifesyle needs. It's all about inclusiveness; new ideas and new faces.

Yes, I am an "old face" having been a Borough resident for more than thirty years, serving ten of them as a town councilman and council president. Therefore, I am more than qualified to share a point of view that I have always held sacred to my own political values - the constant need for new ideas. It is not that some "old-timers" do not have new ideas. I still have a new idea every
day, because creativity is one of my personal strengths - I work in new media.
This is not the case for everyone, though. Some do live in the past and - eventually- become tapped out; ready to move on to other pursuits.

When you open a political primary to all interested people, you insure that new ideas and fresh faces will flow. Both of Freehold's political parties definitely need both if the town is to overcome its present challenges and create a new vision that will endure during the twenty-first century. We are no longer in the "good old days" of Freehold Borough. The towns around us changed the rules for growth and survival. We are in a new age in which our town is seeking a new identity that will define us and make us an interesting and affordable town to visit and live in.

If the people's choice wins out over the party's choice on June 5th, Freehold Borough will be taking a significant step in moving forward on a road that will never circle back. I wish all of the current Borough Democratic candidates good luck in the upcoming primary. More importantly, I wish my fellow town residents even better luck in changing the current politics of our town by inviting more residents into the party primary process.