Robert Kleinberg

In 1980, a 10-year-old Jonathan Hornik stood in the recently renovated barn that had just become Marlboro’s town hall to watch his late father, Saul, get sworn in as the town’s new mayor.

Today, just over two years since his father died of lung cancer, Hornik stood in the same room, filled to the rafters with spectators to see the 37-year-old sworn in as mayor.

“Marlboro was a young community well on its way to what I call modern day Marlboro,” reminsced Hornik in his inaugural speech. “….It was a feeling of optimism in 1980, and our town leaders were eager to meet the challenges of their time. Today I feel the same sense of optimism and assure you that this next generation is ready, willing and able to move Marlboro forward to its bright future.”

Hornik is one of the Monmouth County Democrats’ rising stars, having handily defeated incumbent Mayor Robert Kleinberg in a particularly nasty battle while the full slate of his 12th district Democratic legislative counterparts –led by state Sen. Ellen Karcher, a former Marlboro councilwoman – went down in defeat.

The Republican mayor, Robert Kleinberg, reminded senior residents at Greenbriar that he's been responsive to them, and knows three-quarters of them by name.

Democrat Jonathan Hornik wants to develop commercial ratables on part of the site of the old Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital and enlist a grants writer to help reduce local property taxes.

Mayor Robert Kleinberg, post debate

The after-effects of over-development still plague Marlboro, which became a feeding trough for numerous corrupt officials and in the process ballooned its population by double over 20 years.

Now with what little space is left, this town of 43,000 is trying to find the right place to satisfy its state COAH (Council on Affordable Housing) obligation - something the town’s so-called public servants in the past avoided. The biggest policy difference between Republican Mayor Robert Kleinberg and his Democratic challenger Jonathan Hornik is over where to build that glut of units.

Already trying to withstand a maelstrom of Democratic Party ads, GOP Marlboro Mayor Robert Kleinberg over the weekend confronted another adversary: indicted bookkeeper Edward Kay.

Following a campaign sign-showdown Saturday, Kay filed an assault-by-automobile charge with the state against Kleinberg, and the mayor and the Marlboro Township Police Department countered with their own charges of civil harassment and assault and criminal mischief respectively.

In Marlboro, Democratic Mayoral candidate Jon Hornik is demanding that Republican Mayor Robert Kleinberg give back money he took from former Mayor Matthew Scannapieco, who admitted to taking $245,000 from developers.

"Mayor Kleinberg has taken money from felons and given Marlboro the highest property taxes in New Jersey and overdevelopment," Hornik said.

Marlboro Mayor Robert Kleinberg
How a sleepy hollow farming burgh became a build-out crossroads and earned itself a shot as a sprawl capital may have roots in human nature but surely can be immediately traced to the world of New Jersey politics.

When the daughter of a local market farmer here died in child birth in the 1970s, that death was symbolic of a transition to a time when people not only didn’t work the land anymore but cashed in on wrecking it as at no other time. Surrounded by new development and still deaf from artillery fire in Vietnam, another farmer retreated to a broken down school bus on his dried up spread on the side of Route 79 before he left town. Now it’s the senior citizens clinging to a last shred of space, wondering whether to sell and move to Florida or keep forking over money.

Marlboro Township Mayor Robert Kleinberg this week denied that he used bad language in dressing down a minor at a Bar Mitzvah in Old Bridge.

Marlene Alterman filed a July 27th harassment complaint against Kleinberg with the Old Bridge Township Police Department, alleging that at a June 16th party at a catering place on Route 9 the mayor called her 12-year old son an obscenity, then followed him outside and again addressed the child using foul language.

Monmouth County Republicans are headed into Saturday's Special Election Convention with six candidates vying Amy Handlin's Freeholder seat. The conventional wisdom is that Howell Mayor Joseph DiBella is the front-runner, but Wall Republican Municipal Chairman Robert McKenna and Highlands Councilwoman Anna Little. Hazlet Committeewoman Bridget Antonucci and Marlboro Mayor Robert Kleinberg have some pockets of County Committee votes,and attorney Thomas Seno is viewed as having a lock of last place. DiBella has won endorsements from State Senator Joseph Kyrillos and Freeholder Director Bill Barham; McKenna's key backer is Assemblyman Sean Kean, while Little has support from Freeholder Theodore Narozanick and former Freehodler Thomas Powers. The worst kept secret in the Monmouth GOP right now is that the Republican County Chairman, Frederick Niemann, is quietly backing DiBella. Republicans will have another fierce contest in about two months, if Narozanick and Surrogate Marie Muhler decide not to seek re-election, and a third in June -- two challengers have already entered the race to take on Niemann for County Chairman.