Politics & Government

Township Committee Candidates: Maxine Blumenthal

We're asking the five candidates for Barnegat Township Committee to answer some questions about why they're running for office

With election day two weeks away, Barnegat Patch is turning the focus on the candidates for township committee. Below, you'll find Republican Maxine Blumenthal's answers to a number of questions that you, Patch's readers, helped draw up in recent weeks. Keep reading in the coming days for profiles of the other four candidates whose names will be on the Nov. 8 ballot.

  • Candidate name: Maxine Blumenthal
  • Address: 160 Brighton Road
  • Party: Republican
  • Occupation: Retired educator with a Master’s in secondary reading disability; managed several doctors’ offices.
  • Previous government experience: Served on the Barnegat Township Committee from 2004 to 2006; served as Deputy Mayor in 2006.

Maxine Blumenthal is making a second bid for a committee seat after a five-year break from the dais. She said serving others remains important to her, and if elected, she hopes to use her committee seat to find creative ways to save taxpayers money, make government more transparent and help the less fortunate. 

 

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Obviously, taxes are issue number one for a lot of people. Can you offer up some specific ideas for cutting taxes, including, but not limited to, cuts you would make in municipal spending?

The township can only cut that part of the tax bill which covers municipal appropriations,” said Blumenthal, which amounts to about 30 cents of each local tax dollar residents pay.

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In order to make a noticeable reduction in the township budget, drastic cuts would have to be made in departments which provide the residents with their safety, health and basic services, she said.

“Some New Jersey towns with similar populations cut 26 positions, including 10 police,” she said. “One closed Town Hall on Fridays. Not my style. Cuts need to be done with a scalpel, not hatchet.”

Blumenthal said she’d start with every non-essential, non-mandated item and work line by line, balancing cuts with absolute necessities.

“Shared services and lowering overtime are first options, and renegotiating contracts where applicable,” she said. Then she’d focus on finding ways hire part-time, hourly paid, non-benefit employees where possible.

“How about hiring three or four interior housekeeping hourly workers to do routine cleaning of municipal buildings, free up the public workers to do the technical or heavy outdoor jobs?” she said. “Then look for temps to do the usual time-consuming filing or copying, collating and answering phones to facilitate the understaffed clerk’s office. Let’s use the wealth of talent and workforce we have in Barnegat to run the town cheaper and with more efficiency where possible.”

She also said she's interested in finding more inexpensive ways to expand and diversify recreation options in the township.

"I already suggested a putting green, shuffleboard and horshoe courts, volleyball," she said, suggesting the old tennis court at Meadowedge Park be repaired for lessons.

"Be creative, not expensive," she said. 

 

Did you approve of the 2011 municipal budget? If not, what specifically would you have changed?

Blumenthal said such a question is moot for someone who didn’t sit on the committee during the planning and preparation of the budget.

“If I were on the committee, it might never have come to where it is,” she said. “You can’t go back."

Instead of second-guessing, she said, she's looking forward to the next budget, and said she has ideas about how to make the creation process more open.

“As a Township Committeewoman from 2004 to 2006, we held workshops on six Saturdays from 9 to 12, sitting at desks in the courtroom and openly discussing each department’s requested budgets, followed by a public session for comment,” she said. “It was a time-consuming process with much left to do in a more formal setting when dealing with state and Ocean County mandates or EPA regulations, which all cost money.”

Still, she said, it was key to getting public input on the budget process, and she'd like to see the practice return.

 

One issue that readers have been asking everyone to weigh in on is salaries and benefits for elected officials. Do you, or would you, collect and keep a salary and medical benefits? What are your thoughts on those who say elected officials should not do so?

Blumenthal said that if elected, she would decline to take part in the New Jersey Health Plan offered to committee members, just as she did not take the medical benefit option after being elected in 2004.

As for the salary, she said she would accept it.

“It’s not a salary, it’s an honorarium,” she said. “After taxes and all deductions, it was negligible, and then I had to pay federal and state taxes on it.” All told, she said, it barely adds up to enough to cover the gas money committee members spend on official business, and exists more as a gesture.

 

Accessibility and transparency are also important topics for a lot of people. Do you, or would you, make a point to personally respond to calls and emails from residents? What do you think can be done to increase the level of communication between residents and officials, and make township matters more transparent?

Bumenthal said her plan to reopen budget meetings to the public would be an important part of increasing government transparency.

“I would make every effort to have the entire committee...open the budget to public input on those areas where there is discretionary spending while it is in the formative stage,” she said.

She also said she’d make herself personally accessible to residents.

“My land line phone number, email address and home address have been handed out over and over to anyone and everyone who wishes to accept my card,” she said, and pledged to return any and all calls.

Blumenthal also said she was not in favor of cutting township meetings, even in the summer months. She said she’d also like to explore ways to give residents more opportunity to find out about the government process talk to elected officials, including writing a column for local media and holding informal regular public sessions.

“The town now has more sources of communication than ever before,” she said. “Let’s use them to the fullest. 

 

What else is important to you as a candidate?

“There needs to be more township attention to those who are in need of assistance, whatever that assistance might be,” Blumenthal said. The aim would not be to support them directly, she said, but to steer them in the right direction to find help. “Food, heat, rent, legal assistance – they have to know where to come.”

She’d like to see an organized volunteer effort to offer guidance to those looking for a helping hand. Someone could sit at a desk at the entrance to town hall, for instance, Blumenthal said, answering a phone and helping people in person understand the local and state resources available to them.

“We have to be the avenue through which some of this information can be made readily available,” she said.


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