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Councilman Kevin Sanders is looking for a fourth term on council in this year’s Asbury Park council elections.

Sanders is running on the Forward Asbury Park ticket with fellow incumbents Sue Henderson and John M. Loffredo, as well as newcomers Gregory Hopson and Will Potter. The election is May 14. All five council seats are up for grabs for four year terms.

His mother’s grandmother founded Bethel AME church on Langford Avenue in 1927, and his family has resided in Asbury Park ever since, he said. He attended grammar, middle and high school in Asbury Park, excelling in track and music. He became a jazz musician after playing in school and on the streets of Asbury.

Sanders, 53, joined the Air Force after graduating from Asbury Park High School. He served in Okinawa, Japan, and was in the military from 1977 through 1981. He earned a bachelor’s degree while in the military, he said.

He currently works as a consultant for his own KDS Consultant and Management Company. He consults for minority contractors and business management, he said. He also manages the downtown Urban Nest club on Lake Avenue.

He’s been in management since the age of 21, he said, having managed for three Fortune 500 companies.

He is married to Adrienne and the couples has four children — Kianna, Kevin Kaesan, Kavonne and Keyshawn — ranging in age from 15 to 24. Kianna is a student at Florida Memorial University, Kaesan is enlisted in the Navy, and Kavonne and Keyshawn attend Academy Charter School in Lake Como.

Sanders was first elected to council in 2001 and served as mayor from 2001 through 2009. He’s served as a councilman since then and is finishing his third consecutive term on the dais.

Sanders has been involved in many community organizations. He started the Biddy Basketball League, he said, which serves children in second through ninth grades.

“We saw a lot of the kids who grew up in the program were getting better grades ,staying off the streets,” he said, and pointed to recent evidence that juvenile crime in the city has decreased substantially. “Some of the guys who started [Biddy Basketball] with me were policemen and firemen who were also coaching. [The children] got to meet the professionals and real role models in the community. They got to know me not just as Mayor Sanders, but Coach Sanders.”

He also supported the Allah Youth Center Basketball League, a summertime program, as well as midnight basketball at the Boys and Girls Club for players ages 16 through 26.

He won a Public Service Award from the Central Jersey Club, as well as a Wilbur Ray Scholarship for working in the community from Brookdale Community College. He received a Random Acts of Kindness Award from the school district, as well as a Clearwater Inc. award acknowledging his hosting of the Clearwater Festival.

He’s also received awards from the Chamber of Commerce, the state Senate and state Assembly, he said, as well as awards for working with disabled children.

He’s also worked with the West Side Community Center since he’s been in office, as well as the Boys and Girls Club. He was also a cub scout and boy scout as a child.

“I’ve always helped the community,” he said. “It’s not just something I started now.”

Sanders is seeking a fourth term on council because he’d like to “keep the stability in the city,” he said. “You can’t have true progress without continuity and stable government. With the resources I’ve attained over the time I’ve been in office, I feel I can really help guide the city. And through the relationships I’ve had with the developers, I’m definitely well-suited to handle any task and any intangibles that come up.”

He estimates he’s dealt with more than 300 developers since first stepping into office, he said.

On council, he serves on the affordable housing committee, the recreation committee, and committees for oceanfront and Springwood Avenue redevelopment, he said.

He is currently finishing an abbreviated term on the Asbury Park Housing Authority. He was first appointed to the authority in April 2011 and began his tenure that June, according to city clerk Stephen Kay. He was replacing another member who resigned.

Sanders joined that board because its former executive director had been arrested and accused of corruption. The council wanted one of its members on the board to ensure everything was going smoothly.

In the past year, Long Branch Housing Authority executive director Tyrone Garrett and his staff oversaw the reduction of the Asbury authority’s budget deficit from $1.2 million to $20,000, according to Garrett. Sanders now feels the authority has progressed enough to continue without him, he said.

Having grown up on the West Side of the city, Sanders wanted to focus especially on improving that area of town when he was first elected, he said. Now, some streets have been repaved and other infrastructure repairs have been made, he said. He also was involved in installing a water park for children on the West Side.

Sanders also negotiated with a developer to ensure that the city received asphalt for free when developing the Prospect Courts, he said.

“I came through all hte programs and recreation in Asbury Park,” he said. “I wanted to give back some of the stuff I experienced growing up in Asbury Park in the 1960s.”

During that time, Asbury was referred to as “Harlem with trees,” Sanders said. “The beach front was fully in flow, Springwood Avenue had all the bar life and shopping. There was just so much activity here,” he said. “Anything you could get in New York, you could get in Asbury.”

Then, riots in the 1970s “scared people away,” he said, and the city had to compete with shopping malls and theme parks for recreation, he said. Political turmoil gripped the city in the 1980s and 1990s, Sanders said, and now, the city is “in flux.”

“We’re on the verge of bringing Springwood Avenue back,” he said. “To have a change in government right now will set the city back. To have a change in continuity could set the city back years.”

The learning curve associated with joining the council is steep, Sanders said, as is learning the redevelopment ropes.

Sanders takes issue with the idea that too much redevelopment has been focused on the city’s water front.

“The only redevelopment on the East Side was done by developers who spent their own money,” he said. “We used eminent domain on the East Side. We did not use eminent domain on the West Side. All the [redevelopment] money the city used was on the West Side.”

In this election, the most important issue for Sanders is quality of life.

This includes “having people feel safe in Asbury Park again,” he said, as well as spurring redevelopment to increase jobs and to help residents become job-ready.

“You have to have people who are skilled and trained to do certain things,” he said. “It’s good to say, ‘we want jobs,’ but you have to stay in school. Education is a must. We have to keep kids in school.”

Sanders spearheaded the effort to bring an annual Mayor’s Ball to the city, he said. The ball involves raising money for scholarships for children from Asbury Park. Two of the students who received scholarships in the past have returned to work in the Asbury Park School District as teachers, he said.

Sanders also started a golf outing last year to raise money for the city organizations. Last year’s outing benefited the Springwood Center, but each year a different charity will benefit, he said.

Sanders also thinks it’s important that renters in the city are able to become homeowners, he said.

His favorite accomplishment during his tenure on council so far has been securing the redevelopment rights for the city in the beach front and on Springwood Avenue at the beginning of his first term, he said. He also was happy to spur redevelopment in the downtown “by giving the shop owners confidence in a stable, honest government that came in,” he said. “Everything we said we were going to do, we did. We did not double-talk. We had no hidden agendas. Everything is up front.”

Crime is “a city-wide concern,” he said, which “has been decreasing over the past 10 years because of recreation programs, because of the cops spending time out there, because of community meetings and because of the programs we’ve had throughout the city.”

People in the community have been stepping up to help curb crime as well, he said. He emphasized that cutting down on crime is a community-wide endeavor.

“You know if your cousin is selling drugs,” he said. “You know if your son is selling drugs. You need to turn them in. You know if your relatives have guns. I know it’s not cool to be snitching, but if we really want to eradicate crime, the community has to step up and help us.”

If reelected, Sanders would focus more on job training programs, he said. This would include bringing in organizations that specialize in job training.

He’d also like to create a database with all local contractors, he said, or “a citywide construction consortium so that once they get certified by us, the developer can use these people,” he said.

Sanders came back to Asbury Park after serving in the Air Force because he wanted to give back to the city, he said.

“Everyone talks about what Asbury meant to them, and they talk about it in the past tense,” he said. “I want to make that the future — what Asbury means to them now.”

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