Former Brick Mayor Candidate Weighs In On Democrats' Rift

BRICK, NJ — Ruthanne Scaturro, the Republican who opposed Brick Township Mayor John G. Ducey in the 2017 election, sent the following letter to Patch regarding the conflict between Ducey and Township Councilman Jim Fozman over the Democrats' Municipal Chair election.

"As a former candidate for mayor of Brick Township in 2017, there are some questions that come to mind when reading about the conflicts brewing in the Democratic Party regarding their Municipal Chair position.

Why would the mayor of the 13th largest town in the state, and who has his own law practice, want to be the chairperson of the Democratic party in Brick? You would think the duties as a full-time mayor of 75,000 people would keep him pretty busy, or at least that’s what he said when he raised his salary to $52,000. He told a local news organization “he increased his salaryafter calculating the number of hours he spends per week on township business and the effect it has on his own income as a local attorney. As Alice in Wonderland said, "Curiouser and curiouser."

So how will he be able to squeeze in the duties of municipal chair? What will happen to the business that needs to be done for the people of Brick? How do you separate the time, so that you are not doing the business of the Democrats while receiving your municipal paycheck, or in Town Hall doing work for the party rather than all the people of Brick Township? These are questions every person in Brick Township should be asking. Are my tax dollars going to support efforts that are not my interests?

The duties of municipal chair are varied; they include distributing campaign materials, recruitment of volunteers, canvassing, but most importantly, the chair is responsible for fundraising. More questions come
to mind when you get into that area. It’s for those types of questions that the Brick Township Republican Organization has written into their bylaws that no person holding elected public office shall hold an office in our organization.

Just like Alice, this journey into why the mayor of Brick Township wants to be the municipal chair begins with curiosity; we will just have to follow the White Rabbit to see where the road ends.

Ruthanne Scaturro,
Vice Chair, Brick Township Republican Municipal Committee

Photo via Patch files. Punctuation edited for clarity; capitalization edited for style