Morristown Councilwoman Kicks Off NJ Assembly Campaign

Morristown Councilman Rebecca Feldman kicked off her 25th District Assembly campaign Thursday at Angela and Jeff Reiner’s Morristown home.

Feldman will run as an Independent for one of the two Assembly seats coming open, after collecting 194 petition signatures. The 25th District is currently represented by Assemblymen Anthony Bucco, of Boonton, and Michael Patrick Carroll, of Morris Plains. 

At the kick-off event, she thanked her husband of 27 years as well as those who came out.

“We have two daughters. One just turned 13 and the other will be 17 in a couple of weeks,” said Feldman. “I really want to envision a future for New Jersey where they live here, they work here in good-paying jobs, they can afford to live nearby and raise families and god-willing and the legislature doing its work, we can afford to retire here. My parents now live in Tennessee.”

Feldman is the "only experienced independent challenger" and no democrats are running. 

Feldman discussed several issues she plans to tackle, including high property taxes, a need for more high-paying jobs and struggling school systems.

Taxes

“Gov. Christie and the Legislature have really started to do some of the things we need. We’ve seen it at the local level the benefit of changes to the binding arbitration, the 2 percent tax cap and the requirement that union members contribute a small amount to their own benefits,” she said, adding that this year in Morristown, these changes saved the town about $300,000, which is a “full point on the tax rate.”

However, “we’ve lost some of those tax rebates that we’ve been getting as property taxpayers, so the net average statewide is really (about) an 18 percent increase in property taxes in the past three years.”

Jobs

“The need for suburbia re-envisioned” is what Feldman said she wants to bring to District 25.

In 2012, Feldman served for about seven months as the executive director of the Morris County Economic Development Corporation.

“I worked with all different towns throughout the county and their leaders to try to identify what their opportunities were for economic development and what their obstacles were to achieving those goals.”

Feldman said that through this experience she learned that employers offering high-paying jobs were attracted to highly educated, young workers, “especially the next generation of workers who want to be in places where they can easily and quickly get to work, get home, enjoy their lives without sitting in traffic forever and ideally they want to get there with mass transit.”

She added that employers seek out “creative, tolerant, diverse communities. Employers want to be in areas where they know they’re going to have a great supply of creative workers who are going to create the jobs for the future.”

However, these young, creative workers need communities with accessible and affordable housing and improvements to roadways, bridges, infrastructure and alternate modes of transportation.

Schools

• “We hear more and more from employers that college graduates are not prepared to work for them.”
• “The new core curriculum approach is going to help us head in the right direction.”

“Through the recession and three disastrous storms, I’ve been both leader and collaborator in creating a renaissance in Morristown. We’ve cut spending, slashed debt, implemented government reforms and built an even more vibrant Morristown,” said Feldman. 

“As our Assemblywoman, I will tackle New Jersey’s serious policy challenges with common-sense fiscal solutions and innovative ideas. Our hard issues – the loss of high-paying jobs, escalating property taxes and stressed school systems – demand problem solving that isn’t bound by extremist ideologies and partisanship, but accountability to tax-paying voters. The time for a real independent is now.”

Check out this Patch article for a look at Feldman’s political journey.