Editor, Asbury Sun,
Mr Kendle’s opponent in Asbury Park’s City Council race is allied with the ‘ward/partisan elections’ faction. This group, despite the ticket’s ‘For all the People’ title, seeks in reality only power for themselves.
An agitating force, which if this person is elected, will import tension into the presently team-oriented council, this faction is the same group behind the ‘A-Team’ of recent years.
Will they again pad the vote with the same invalid ballots as in past?
Vote Kendle/Moor, and No to the three ballot questions. Do NOT fall for noble words that mask a power-grab by this tainted faction.
Gena Scott
First Avenue
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Editor, Asbury Sun,
In Tim Horman’s letter to the editor, he claims there is no data to support that short-term rentals cause higher rents and reduced affordable housing. Yet he never actually gives reasons why allowing these short-term, AirBnB-style rentals would reduce rents, or be better for the city and its year round residents.
I’ve spent a lot of time searching for apartments in the city, and been a resident since 2010. I have noticed a spike in winter rentals and summer rentals when searching for apartments.
The letter references property tax increases. Asbury Park’s property tax increased 1.73 percent in 2018, only 0.09 percent more than the state average.
There has been a dramatic drop in year round rentals as property owners are already pouncing on the city’s location as a summer hot spot. Since 2010, only once has my rent been increased [over two apartments], and that was by only $75 a month.
Allowing the growth of the short-term rental in Asbury Park will only push out the year round residents. We are already seeing buildings being bought up and turned into condo units. It’s only a matter of time before we see these buildings bought up and converted into AirBnBs, leaving the town ghostly in the offseason and overrun in the summer should this ballot question pass.
William Stryker
Second Avenue
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Editor, Asbury Sun,
We are voting for John Moor and Jesse Kendle in the upcoming elections. We are also voting no on each of the three a ballot questions.
Since I stepped down from City Council over two years ago, it’s our experience as a family living in Asbury Park that guides our voting decisions.
Taxes: As a working class family, this is the first year a tax increase did not consume our cost of living increase. That makes a difference for us.
Springwood Avenue Park: We appreciate and enjoy a new community park that is less than a mile from our home.
Sunset Bridge, Bike Lanes, and the Main Street Road Diet: We walk and bike everywhere. It is important to us that the City has become more pedestrian and biker friendly.
We are voting no on all three ballot questions.
Wards: As a community, we need to exercise institutional memory. In 2012 -13 the City commissioned a Charter Study to address this very issue. Wards will not fix our problems and do not even ensure the representation they claim.
Partisan Politics: We are unaffiliated voters. We do not want big political money/parties coming into our independent thinking community. The two party system has polarized the political processes at every level it operates.
Additionally, the same group of people who failed to win any Council seats in the past two elections [the A-Team], are behind this push to create wards and change to partisan politics.
Short-Term Rentals: We live in Asbury Park because we love the community. We oppose any effort to turn our diverse, working class community into a money making machine for the few.
The Woerner Family
Third Avenue
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Editor, Asbury Sun,
If you always want your vote to count and impact the final decision, vote No for partisan elections.
Partisan elections eliminate the run-off procedure.
With partisan elections, as with non-partisan elections, as many people who want can run for a specific office.
In a partisan election most money will be spent on the major party candidates.
We can still [as has happened in the past] have 15 plus people run for one position. When that happens it is doubtful that any one candidate will receive 50.1 percent of the vote.
Look at your Sample Ballot and the number of people running for US Senate. It is a partisan election. It is possible that any one of those eight candidates could win with only 13 to 14 percent of the vote. So 85 percent of voters would lose, not 49 percent as in a two person election.
The Charter Study Commission spent a very, very long time discussing this issue. We even created a sub-committee of residents to help with research and understanding.
Run-off elections [which might not happen every single tim] would ensure that your vote has greater odds of creating a winner.
In our current non-partisan election, if in the first vote no one received 50.1 percent of the vote, the top two vote getters would run in a second [run-off] election. When you vote in this second election, between only two people, you are ensured that your candidate has a 50 percent chance of winning. In this round the person you support has a greater chance of winning. Your vote matters more.
Vote No for partisan elections. Keep Asbury Park non-partisan.
Pam Lamberton
Sunset Avenue
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[This letter represents the opinion of its writer and is not representative of any opinion of the Asbury Park Sun staff. All readers are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor to news@asburyparksun.com for our consideration. For guidelines on letter-writing and submission, click here.]
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