By Hershel Herskowitz

Another typical primary has ended. It was supposed to be a boring primary with no challenger. Nobody was planning on voting. I was upset over the thought of our two incumbent candidates simply sailing into another four years to sit complacent in their positions on the Township Committee. How can we allow them to do nothing other than allow approvals for the well connected, perhaps help a few individuals with small issues, while helping themselves in the process? Surely the people of Lakewood want a Committee that will take steps to help the town grow responsibly, help taxpayers, and make the town a safer, more pleasant place to live.

Two days before the election I begged Louie Follman of J2 pizza and planning board fame, to allow me to promote him as a write in. I took his reply of "you're  nuts" as a reluctant yes. It was worth a shot. Nobody was planning on voting, and I figured if I can get a few hundred write in votes for Louie, we can pry our incumbent Mayor out of his position. I knew it was a pipe dream, and I apologize for dragging Louie Folman into the fray.  Menashe has obviously mesmerized many gullible souls with his perfected act of quasi Judeo military concern for the common man. I hoped that  perhaps there were  enough people that could  see through the facade, and realize that he is in his position to simply make sure that certain things get done for certain people, as long as he gets what he wants. I was wrong.

Of course there are many saying " but that is what politics is all about, favors." Unfortunately,  that is partially true, but when those favors last ten years, and damage the town to a point that it becomes irreparable, something needs to be done.

Neither incumbent can say that they have done anything of real benefit for this town in the last ten years. They don't look at what needs to be fixed, they wait until the complaints start rolling in, or a tragedy happens, to act.  They don't think of ways to promote our town for businesses. They don't look for real solutions for tax relief. They don't try to make sure everyone is paying their fair share of taxes. They don't concern themselves with stopping over development. They never tried to build a playground instead of another parking garage. They simply reacted to other's concerns, while showing no real concern of their own.

So now what? Another four years of this? Is that what we will be subjected to? R' Yisroel Schenkolewski said," we must vote for them because we have hakoros hatov( a debt of gratitude)." Why should we show gratitiude to them? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Are they not indebted to us?  Yisroel Schenkolewski has a skewed sense of gratitude. Perhaps we should thank him for our polluting, possibly carcinogenic, Cogen plant(more about that another time).

As time goes on more people are realizing the damage all these people are doing to our town. They are realizing that the whole town(and our tax money) services a select few.

So now we are left with the only real solution to our woes. It is called the Faulkner act. I will be writing about the benefit of a Faulkner form of Government for our town, just like all the larger Townships have, in future articles.  For now the main benefit of passing The Faulkner Act that needs to be known, is simple.

There would be no more Township Committee!