Point Pleasant Mayoral Election 2022: Robert A. Sabosik

POINT PLEASANT, NJ — When voters go to the polls in Point Pleasant on Nov. 8, they will be asked to choose the town's mayor.

There are two people seeking the four-year mayoral term, Robert Sabosik and William "Bill" Borowsky.

Patch asked each candidate to answer questions to give voters information about who they are and their stances on various issues. We are printing their responses in full, unedited except for spelling or punctuation.

Here are the answers for Robert Sabosik, who is 71.

Party affiliation: Republican

Tell voters about your family: Married to my wife, CJ, have three daughters and five grandchildren.

Tell voters about your education: I attended St. Peter's Grammar School, St. Rose High School and graduated from Seton Hall University with a bachelor's degree in history and a minor in government and accounting.

What is your occupation? President and CEO of Sabosik Associates Inc. and managing partner of MESA II.

Previous elective office, if any: Borough of Point Pleasant's Council, 2010 to 2014; Council President in 2013 and 2014; Borough of Point Pleasant's Mayor, 2015 to present.

Do you or anyone in your family work for the state, county or local governments? No.

Why are you seeking office? I've lived my whole life here, raised my family here and started my business here. I love this community to no end. I want to make sure that we are always considered the best place to live and raise a family for years to come. I want to continue to promote and develop the professional staff and fine-tune the policies of the borough's municipal operations so that future generations can benefit from a well-run community. To continue to have working relationships with the Chamber of Commerce and the school system, to interact and support charitable and service organizations, to support the police, first aid and fire departments along with the top-notch municipal employees. We've come a long way since I was first elected mayor, we've had clean audits and financial statement ever since, including the increase of our bond rating twice, and we've modernized a good number of municipal operations, putting more and more services online for residents' convenience. I want to contribute moving forward and continue making improvements that will benefit our residents.

What do you feel is the most pressing issue facing Point Pleasant, and what do you want to do about it?

To narrow that down to one most pressing issue would be a disservice to our residents. There are multiple that all have equal importance. One being state-mandated programs that the town must fund. We are constantly being handed down mandates from Trenton that the State of New Jersey is forcing us to comply with. Whether it be new affordable housing units, floodplain changes, cost increases, new programs and various changes hampering law enforcement, the governor and the Legislature are making towns comply but not providing the funding for us to actually comply with. I've joined other mayors on multiple occasions to challenge the state on many of these issues and will continue to do so. Other issues include flood mitigation from a post-Sandy environment. We've done a good number of drainage improvements in neighborhoods trying to fight back high-water tables and severe storms overtaxing our existing drainage systems. We have a few more years' worth of work though to be able to get to all of these areas in town, but it's my goal to make sure we do. Another is pedestrian safety. We have more young families in Point Borough than ever, we've started putting in new sidewalks in various neighborhoods a few years ago and made great progress but we still have more to do. Each year my team and I have committed to doing more pedestrian safety projects and will continue to do so to make up for previous administrations where these issues were not a priority.

Point Pleasant is facing some of the same issues every town faces – attracting businesses, keeping the tax rate and ratable base stable. What do you think Point Pleasant can do to make things attractive to businesses?

To continue to have a positive relationship with the Chamber of Commerce. To help small businesses grow. I started a family business decades ago in my mother's basement and a chicken coop. We have grown tremendously since then. My goal is to continue to help small businesses attain the higher success that they all want and deserve. Before I became mayor, the Borough was not a member of the Chamber of Commerce. My team and I changed that and we enrolled the Borough as a government entity as a chanber member to help continue to grow our local economy.

The state continues to push for shared services and mergers of small municipalities to eliminate duplication of services and potentially ease the pressure on taxpayers. Do you think Point Pleasant should weigh such a move?

Shared services is absolutely the way to go. In fact, we are already participating in a number of shared service arrangements with Point Pleasant as the lead agency, all saving taxpayers in multiple communities including our own money while increasing efficiency and professional networks. Our town is in a shared service with Bay Head for administration services, we have shared services with South Toms River for CFO and tax collection services and we anticipate doing more in the future. All towns, especially smaller towns, do not need to waste money by duplicating services if they can share said services and employees.

If you could change one thing about Point Pleasant right now, what would it be?

To be able to get more recreation areas for our multiple generations to enjoy. The Borough a very long time ago, way before I became involved, sold Beaver Dam Park to the county for $1. We lost much-needed recreational space with that deal and it should never have been done. My team's goal going forward is to rehabilitate our existing fields and sports areas and to continue to work with the county to allow more use at Beaver Dam Park for our growing families and sports programs. All this will coincide with our new and updated Recreation Center that we've already talked about at council meetings that hopefully will have the majority of it paid for via grant dollars.