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Editor, the Asbury Park Sun,

People have been asking my opinion regarding the ballot question to change our form of government. I realize that the charter study commission has worked long and hard and I deeply appreciate all of their efforts. Although I do not agree with some of their findings, I applaud and thank them for all of their hard work.

I do not like the question for the following reasons:

a. MOVING THE ELECTION TO NOVEMBER: As much as it says Asbury’s elections will remain non-partisan, moving the election gives political parties, and politics on the local, county, state, and federal level the opportunity to turn the election partisan. I feel this has already been done in recent elections.

b. RUNOFF ELECTIONS: I have several concerns here:

1.One of the factors of moving the elections to November was to save money. However, if you have runoffs you have just increased the cost to the taxpayers, hence we are not saving money.

2. We all saw the confusion in the last election with vote by mail ballots. Is the system capable of handling this process only four weeks after a general election? Monmouth County had months the last time and it did not seem to go smoothly.

3. When I asked the charter study commission what would happen if six people ran for the four council seats and no one received a majority, the answer I got was all six would run again four weeks later. Frankly, that does not make sense to me.

4. What does a candidate do? Exhaust their funds and campaign hard in November or hold back until the run off in December? Will more people run just so no one can get the 51% needed to win just to throw it into a costly runoff election? If there are runoffs in the first week of December will people come out to vote? It is my understanding from attending the commission meetings no municipality in Monmouth County has runoffs, and the ones that did got rid of them.

c. ALL COUNCIL PEOPLE ELECTED AT LARGE: I favor the ward system, with other council at large members. It would give fairer representation to all parts of the city. A gentleman at the homeowner’s association complained he lived in the southeast quadrant, and felt he had no representation.

What I still support is STAGGERED TERMS. If the past Council had addressed this issue we would not be faced with this referendum question. I am also for term limits, but this is not an option in New Jersey, something the state legislators should address.

On Nov. 5th I will be voting NO on the charter study commission ballot question.

Again, thank you Pam, Rita, Michelle, Duane and Randy for your dedication and hard work.

Councilman John B. Moor

Asbury Park

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