The Republican Ticket for Chatham Township - Mark & Rez

Candidate Statement of Rez Estevez

Dated: June 2, 2019

On June 4th, my running mate, Mark Hamilton, and I ask that you vote for the two of us.

In an unprecedented endorsement, Chatham Township’s past four Republican mayors – Curt Ritter, Kevin Sullivan, Bailey Brower, and Nicole Hagner – have endorsed Mark and me. (Four Chatham Township Mayors Endorse Rez Estevez and Mark Hamilton: https://bit.ly/2WkCbJd). Mark and I are grateful for the confidence in our Republican ticket.

We’re grateful to these mayors for their many years of thoughtful, conservative stewardship, which has produced the fiscal stability that Chatham Township now enjoys. It’s brazen fecklessness for Tayfun Selen, mayor for just six months, to take credit for the auspicious work of these four mayors over the course of ten-plus years.

The Township Committee has moved away from the Republican values that have made Chatham Township a source of pride. It’s apparent that the current leadership in the Township Committee is disorganized and sorely disconnected from our community’s values. We need to get back on-track.

Mark and I run in this primary to:

· Preserve Home Values: a shift in philosophy seems to be moving the Township Committee toward restricting homeowners' ability to renovate homes to maximize their value. This would hurt every homeowner, especially our Seniors. Homeowners deserve to have their property values protected. The better solution is to enforce the current rules to protect homeowners, and to support Seniors in our community.

· Keep the Township Fiscally Responsible: under its new leadership, the Committee is making unnecessary expenditures and bloating government with wasteful initiatives, which will increase property taxes. The better solution is to avoid unnecessary expenditures, and stick to infrastructure demands, such as drainage improvements and paving.

· Openly Engage With Township Residents: under its new leadership, some in the Township Committee seem to be looking for ways to constrain the freedom of Chatham Township residents to voice their views at public meetings. Township professionals are cut off when reporting or advising. And Township Committee members are themselves blocked. The better solution is support residents' engagement with their government. Leadership doesn’t arise from a gavel. We should welcome everyone’s viewpoint, and not shout-down dissenting views.

Chatham Township faces ongoing challenges now and into the future. For example, our continuing to grapple with court-mandated affordable housing requirements in a way that mitigates impacts upon Chatham Township and our schools is a big priority. We need elected officials with integrity and discernment to meet these challenges under guiding principles that have made our community so successful.

I’m highly qualified to join to contribute to the Township Committee. I’ve practiced business immigration law for more than 25 years in New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C., originally at top-ranked national law firms, and more recently in-house at publicly traded IT and business consulting companies that operate globally. In focusing my legal practice on bringing the best and the brightest to the U.S. lawfully, I feel that I engage in American nation building every day. Rutgers University has made my career possible. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science. My main interest areas were solid waste management and used water treatment. While at the Rutgers School of Law – Newark, I spent a lot of time at the in-school legal clinics that provide legal services in the areas of urban law, animal protection, and environmental law.

Throughout my career I’ve done pro bono work in family, criminal, and immigration law. One of the highlights of my career was gaining a rare humanitarian parole within a couple of weeks for a child survivor of a major tsunami in Asia. The child was the sole survivor among his immediate and extended family and friends; altogether, about 20 people in that child’s life died that day and he was left homeless. Without that humanitarian parole, it would've taken several, costly months to bring the child to the U.S. lawfully for adoption. The child was in urgent need of medical and mental health services. After achieving a lawful U.S. entry for him in record time, his uncle (the child’s father’s twin and a U.S. citizen) was able to adopt him into what remained of the child's family. Closer to home, earlier this year I partnered with co-counsel to help a well-deserving Morris County resident in protecting her parental rights in the face of an acrimonious family law dispute. We were able to protect the mother’s access to her teen daughters. Within Chatham Township I have served in the Republican Committee and its board to support our elected officials in elections.

I run in this primary because I love Chatham Township. Our family – which is comprised of a wonderful husband, two talented teenage boys, two precocious tween girls, and me - is blended in more than one way. We originate from Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. We're Christian and Jewish. Two of our four kids are adopted. We are English speakers and Spanish learners; I’m a native Spanish speaker.

We moved into Chatham Township in 2012, simply because it's the best place to live in New Jersey. Here’s another reason we moved to Chatham Township: we appreciate how open and welcoming our community is – something that Chatham Township’s new leadership is threatening. Our current mayor shuts-down debate and punishes dissenters by launching personal attacks. That’s not the Chatham Township that we know and love.

It's a bitter irony that our opponent has taken a page from the Democrat identity politics attack manual to falsely libel Mark and me as “dishonest” and “race-baiters.” Want to know about that article?

· The English version can be found here: https://bit.ly/2JxDNZt.

· Best of all, the Turkish language version includes every one of the original, highly inappropriate and disparaging comments. It can be found here: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/don-kisot-gibi-geldim-buraya-41079566.

· And here's a tweet from the article's author - in perfect English - promoting the article: https://twitter.com/hdner/status/1083340176808706049.

Others have connected the dots:

· A “Tayfun” of Ugly Politics Hits Chatham Township (https://bit.ly/2wybXnk); and

· Know The Facts Before you Vote on June 4th! (https://bit.ly/310bCaS).

Unlike our current mayor, I don’t aspire to become a career politician. I run to serve this community that we share, in which we live and raise our families. This June 4th, please vote for Mark and me. Thank you.

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