{"id":13318,"date":"2018-08-28T23:14:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T03:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=13318"},"modified":"2018-08-28T23:14:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T03:14:02","slug":"brick-councilman-switches-parties-mayor-hits-back-with-patronage-allegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/08\/brick-councilman-switches-parties-mayor-hits-back-with-patronage-allegation\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Councilman Switches Parties, Mayor Hits Back With Patronage Allegation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mayor<\/a>

Mayor John Ducey and Councilman Jim Fozman. (Photos: Daniel Nee\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Brick Township councilman became the second local elected member of the Democratic party to announce he would become a Republican. A day after endorsing GOP U.S. Sen. candidate Bob Hugin, Councilman James Fozman said the party had \u201cleft me.\u201d Fozman made the announcement at a council meeting Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

But Mayor John Ducey, who also serves as Democratic party chairman, hit back at Fozman\u2019s claim that he was leaving the Democrats because they had become too liberal. Instead, he said Fozman took it personally after he was not appointed as the township\u2019s public works director \u2013 a claim Fozman vehemently denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lie, it\u2019s an absolute lie,\u201d said Fozman, adding that he is retired and has not been looking for a job.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim said he\u2019s interested in being more fiscally conservative, and I\u2019d put my record as mayor up against anyone in the history of this town in terms of most conservative spending,\u201d said Ducey, who has kept expenditures to a 3.1 percent increase during his time in office and was able to offer a tax cut in 2017.<\/p>\n

Fozman, however, said the Democratic party in Brick engages in \u201cthe silencing of any dissent, concerns or discussions in public,\u201d rarely holds any committee meetings and \u201cmakes up the rules as they go along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fozman said a political consultant working for the party recently told him he was not welcome at caucus meetings \u201cbecause they feel I no longer share their political philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past two and-a-half years, it has become increasingly evident that my colleagues moved further to the left, and aligned their philosophies with those of the Hillary Clinton Democrats,\u201d Fozman said, referencing the unsuccessful 2016 presidential nominee. \u201cI represent the values of Brick, not the mayor, council or political advisors. My values are shared with the people of Brick, and have always been fiscally and socially conservative, and more in line with the Republican party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey shot back that Republicans in Brick have a history of appointing elected officials to public jobs. Fozman, he claims, asked the Municipal Utilities Authority and the township to send him to school for qualify to become DPW head, but both requests were denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main staple of our platform, one of the main staples we ran on, is the fact that we would never give township jobs to sitting council people or their family members,\u201d said Ducey.<\/p>\n

Fozman said he did ask to take a class a Rutgers to better qualify him to serve for free on the MUA and with his duties on council, but he was not looking to be a paid employee. Fozman then said Ducey\u2019s brother-in-law serves as a public defender in Brick and his sister-in-law recently landed a job with the Motor Vehicle Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brokers deals,\u201d said Fozman.<\/p>\n

Ducey dismissed the allegations about his party and fiscal record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like he\u2019s switching for the wrong reasons, and it\u2019s obviously not true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fozman is the second local elected official to leave the Democratic party this summer. Last month, Toms River Councilman Daniel Rodrick left the party<\/a> after Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill cutting school funding to his town. Brick is struggling with a similar cut.<\/p>\n

No Republican has been elected in Brick since, ironically, Fozman\u2019s ticket swept a council majority in 2011. As a member of the GOP, Fozman will deal with a council stacked 6-1 against him.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brick Township councilman became the second local elected member of the Democratic party to announce he would become a Republican. A day after endorsing GOP U.S. Sen. candidate Bob Hugin, Councilman James Fozman said the party had \u201cleft me.\u201d Fozman made the announcement at a council meeting Tuesday night. But Mayor John Ducey, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[3356,24,3367,315,92],"class_list":["post-13318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-democrats","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-brick-republicans","tag-jim-fozman","tag-john-ducey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/pjimage.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3sO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}