Livingston Council Election Profiles: Mayor Edward Meinhardt

LIVINGSTON, NJ — What are the most important issues in Livingston? What should happen with affordable housing? How much does one's political party influence local issues? Livingston's seven Township Council candidates recently participated in a debate.

They also have answered questions from the press, including from Patch.

Patch will be posting their candidate profiles and Q&A's in the next few weeks, in the order in which they were received. Watch for more before the Nov. 8 election.

The three Democrats, three Republicans, and an independent are vying for three seats on the five-member Township Council.

• Note that you can (and should!) submit letters, photos, events, and releases to be posted on Patch by following these instructions.
  
• Find out when and how to cast your ballot on the town's website here.

Below are candidate Edward Meinhardt's answers.

Edward Meinhardt
58 Years old
BS/BA in Finance from Boston University 1986
Married to Elena for 30 Years
Daughter Jillian, Graduated LHS 2013. University of Maryland 2017, MSW from Rutgers in 2019
Son: Garrett, Graduated LHS 2016. University of Michigan 2020
Employment: Senior Sales Associate, European Granite and Marble.

No other family member works in Government or Politics

Volunteer work: Elected two-term President of Temple B'nai Abraham, Livingston, NJ. Served as: Membership committee Co-Chair, Secretary and Vice President, Current Co-Chair of the Ritual Committee and current member of the Board of Trustee at Temple B'nai Abraham 15-year member of the Livingston Soccer Club Board of Directors. Scheduled over 300 home travel soccer games.

Coached girls Softball Rec Program, Boys and Girls Rec Basketball, Boys Little League, Travel Soccer manager for 7 years.

Elected and other: Elected Twice to the Livingston Town Council. Currently the Town Mayor, serving my second one-year term and have been elected twice as Deputy Mayor. Served on the Livingston Zoning Board of Adjustments. Served as Chair of the LMAC committee.

1. One of the best things in Livingston is the sense of community and pride that exists in our town, in addition to the constant support of our residents for another — neighbors helping neighbors

Livingston is very fortunate to have such dedicated and involved citizens who spend so much of their time volunteering in our many active organizations. Through all the meetings, activities and events I attend, I am amazed as to the number of volunteers, endless spirit and inspiring ideas that arise. Volunteers are the spirit, backbone and core of our town and I thank you all for what each of you do!

I am very proud (through my actions and urging over the past eight years), how closely the Board of Education and Town Council members have become and how we work together for the common goal of our residents. Over the past few years collectively, we improved the softball and baseball fields at the Oval. Had the tennis courts both at the High School and Heritage Middle school redone, built 6 new PickleBall Courts at Heritage and made a right turn only lane from
Foxcroft on to Hillside to alleviate traffic.

One improvement I will work on, if re-elected, is the communication of town services and events to our residents.

2. Local town experience always has and will always count!

It is very important for a candidate to have a balanced volunteer town resume and working knowledge of our town.

I have lived in "OUR" town for the past 26 years and have been active in various committees and organizations throughout these years. A few highlights from my town resume:

• I served 4 years as a two-term elected President of my local synagogue, Temple B'nai Abraham
• I served as a board member of the Livingston Soccer Club for more than 15 years scheduling over 300 home travel soccer games
• I was a member of the Livingston Zoning Board of Adjustments

During the past 8 years on the Town Council…

• I served as twice elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor
• Chair of the LMAC committee and liaison to many committees.

Local town experience always has and always will count!

It is for the above reasons and so many more I feel uniquely qualified to be re-elected to the Livingston Town Council.

3. I am a registered Democrat and run on the Democratic Line A. However, I do not think political or national parties should matter in local town elections.

I always stress the words "OUR TOWN" as I truly believe Democrat, Republican or Independent, we always need to remember, this is "OUR" town and we must work as ONE to accomplish our goals.

No "D", "R" or "I", picks up your garbage and leaves, plows your streets, lines your fields, keepsresidents safe and healthy.

It is the person you vote for, who has the experience, the working knowledge of our town and has proven they can do the job for our town. This is the most important thing to consider when voting for a candidate.

4. This past year's decisions on developments that have come online due to this round of affordable housing, have been the toughest decisions I personally had to make in the past 8 years.

We fought back hard on the 765 units of Fair Share Housing Corp. demand on the Township. Based on court approved methodology, after multiple meetings with our attorney's and team, we successfully settled on 195 units total. This represented a significant lower number of units than mandated to us.

We then continuously met with the developers, working to achieve having the least amount of multi-bedroom, non-age restrictive units allowable under the law.

We continue to say no to builders who are trying to bully us into accepting their plan when our FSH obligations have been met.

We continue to work with our State officials in Trenton, to push Governor Murphy to appoint COAH Board Members, so not all the power is in the court system.

Livingston embraces the concept of Fair Share, however it must done with proper planning, thoughts for the future and collaborative efforts from Trenton and municipalities.

5. The one book I would donate to the Library is "All but my Life" by Gerda Weissman Klein.

This book shows the struggles of a young woman in her late teens, during the Nazi Regime in Europe in during World War II. She was separated from her parents, and spent 6 years in work camps, barely surviving.

Towards the end of the War, as she was on a death march a day before her 21st birthday she sees a U.S. Army jeep pull up to the camp. She did not know they were there to liberate them. One of the two men in the jeep, approached her. His name was Kurt Klein and his jeep mate was my father, Al Meinhardt.

Gerda and Kurt, fell in love, married in 1946, and raised a family. She became a world famous author and speaker sharing her important stories from the War.

The Kleins and the Meinhardts became good friends and they attended my Bar Mitzvah in 1977. Gerda spoke at my school and Temple. Both of my children have had the opportunity to meet with her and hear her speak. She had a tremendous influence on myself and my family.

In today's world of rising anti semitism, her words and actions mean even more to all of us today.