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Former councilman James William Keady is seeking a second term on the Asbury Park council.

Council elections are being held Tuesday, May 14. All five council members’ terms expire on June 30. The election is nonpartisan.

Keady, 41, lives on Cookman Avenue with his four-year-old daughter, Reese Ann Keady, he said. He grew up in Belmar and moved to Asbury Park in 2002. He left the city in 2009, and moved back in January 2012.

Keady previously served on the city council from 2005 to 2008. In 2005, he ran with two other city residents but he was the only one on his team to be elected. Keady resigned six months before his four year term expired.

“At that time, because of pressing private family matters, I could not do my elected duties to the best of my ability,” Keady said in an email. “To be fair to the residents of Asbury Park, my family (most importantly my six-month-old daughter) and myself, I had to regretfully step down.”

He works as a sales director at All Shore Screen Printing and Embroidery in Avon-by-the-Sea.  Prior, he was the founding director of Educating for Justice, a nongovernmental organization focused on advocating for better wages and working conditions for more than one million factory workers who produce sneakers, apparel and equipment for Nike Inc., he said.

He still works with Educating for Justice on a part-time basis, recently working with an Indonesian trade union to win a settlement of $1 million for 8,000 workers at a Nike plant in Sukabumi, Indonesia, he said.

He is also president of GK1 Club, LLC, which provides training to soccer goalkeepers in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

He holds a bachelors degree in psychology from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a masters degree in theology from St. John’s University in New York City.

While on council, Keady served as co-chair of the council’s subcommittee on affordable housing; the Asbury Works advisory board; the Springwood Avenue redevelopment advisory committee; the subcommittee on homelessness; and the parking commission. He has also been a member of the Wesley Lake Commission, and represented the city on the Board of Directors of the YMCA of Greater Monmouth County. He also served on the parish council at Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

He and his four running mates — Daniel Harris, Nora Hyland, Remond Palmer and Duanne Small — are running under the name “Uniting Asbury.”

In office, Keady “fought diligently as the loyal opposition,” he said, “constantly challenging my colleagues to do better for all the citizens of Asbury Park.”

Keady decided to run for council again because he believes he and his running mates “can really make a difference in the lives of the residents of Asbury Park,” he said in an email. “We have a hope for the city that goes beyond redeveloping buildings and opening new businesses — we do want to accomplish these — but we also want to engage every citizen in revitalizing the very spirit of the community.”

The most important thing for his team, he said, is leadership.

“I believe that our vision for Asbury Park, our connection to the very pulse of the city’s residents, our commitment to providing the best possible governance, and our relentless work ethic make us the clear choice to lead this city,” he said.

Keady said he spent his time in office fighting for “better government, better services, more transparency, fiscal responsibility, better terms on the waterfront redevelopment, and more attention to job development, affordable housing, recreation and social and economic issues.”

He also “consistently demanded more attention be paid to stopping the violence and killings in our community,” he said.

He called his time on council difficult, saying he was “one voice with only one vote.” He is looking forward to the possibility of governing with his running mates, “who are equally passionate about the issues,” he said.

Keady and his running mates are referred to in campaign literature as “the A-Team.”

“With the A-Team working together, I will not have to waste energy fighting to simply get these issues on the agenda,” he said. “This is our agenda. And together we will work to make our vision, goals and objectives a reality.”

Keady and his running mates have goals for their possible time in office, he said, the first of which is “zero shootings.”

“No other community in our surrounding area tolerates violence and killing the way we have,” he said. “We had 53 shootings in Asbury Park in the past year. This is simply unacceptable. It is horrific for the families who have been impacted; it is scary for potential for visitors who want to come to our city; and it is bad for business.”

The first step for ending violence is “getting the entire community to make the commitment to stop the violence,” he said, while the second step is “getting to the root causes of the violence.” The city cannot arrest its way out, he said.

Keady also suggests bringing a program called Amer-I-Can to the city. The program, which was started by former professional football player Jim Brown, “may be one of the most effective programs in combating the underlying causes that push young men and women to join gangs and become destructive, rather than constructive, members of society,” Keady said.

Keady also would like to establish a re-entry program for residents who have been discharged from prison so that when they return to the city, “having paid their debt to society, they can put their life back together and be a positive force in our community.” He points to the Getting Out and Staying Out Program in New York City as one he’d like to emulate.

Keady would like to increase the city’s median household income by $10,000. Currently, the city’s median household income is $33,663, he said, and more than 31 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

“This low income level and this poverty rate are unacceptable,” he said. “In every other surrounding community it is unacceptable and it must be unacceptable here in Asbury Park.”

The solution to this issue is three-fold, Keady said. The council must work with private-sector investors and businesses to create well-paying jobs for city residents, he said. They also must work with residents to help them search for jobs outside the city’s borders in addition to within Asbury Park, he said. Also, the city must collaborate with Asbury schools to ensure that the children are receiving an education “that prepares them to be effective critical thinkers, innovative problem solvers, and diligent hard workers — the three qualities that are necessary for any entrepreneur or employee,” he said.

Keady also would like to increase tourism revenue in the city and ensure Asbury Park is a year-round tourist desgination.

“First, we must create a world-class marketing and branding schematic and focus our advertising dollars on attracting visitors from around New Jersey, as well as New York and Pennsylvania,” he said.

Also, the city should “provide more hotels and bed-and-breakfasts,” he said, ranging from economy prices to higher end.

Third, the city should develop year-round event programming, he said.

Keady and his running mates “are 100 percent committed to engaging the entire community in an open-source problem-solving approach,” he said. “There are so many talented and hard-working people here in our city, who for far too long have not been invited to the table at City Hall and encouraged to share their personal and professional expertise to help us solve our most pressing and exciting challenges.”

Keady invites residents to contact him with questions or comments at keadyforcouncil@gmail.com, or by phone at 732-988-7322.

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