Kelly's Reasons for Running

Making my voice heard does not come naturally to me. However, since I moved from Montclair to Glen Ridge in 1987, I have felt compelled to participate in a number of challenges that have faced our community, sometimes in partnership with community leadership and sometimes in opposition. Which means I’ve spoken in public a lot these past 21 years.

Each time I screwed up the courage to read prepared comments in public -- hands shaking, voice quivering – I was filled with the fear that a mistake had been made, an important fact overlooked, a consequence not considered.

But I stuck with it. And starting with Mayor Ed Callahan in my role as a leader of The Loraine Street Committee for a Radium Free Glen Ridge, right up to the present as chairman of the Glen Ridge Planning Board I have experienced municipal government from both sides of the bar in Borough Hall.

As a Planning Board member I’ve been in the position of spending months hearing testimony, meeting with experts, struggling to understand detailed data and exhibits -- all requiring meetings that can stretch long into the night. And I have been one of the guys at the front of the room listening to late comers with concerns.

Yes, I have felt frustrated when -- seemingly out of nowhere -- a solution that has taken months to craft was suddenly under attack. And those I have worked so hard to please had nothing good to say about the efforts or the results.

In those situations, I always thought back to those times when I wasn’t the guy at the front of the room, the shaky hand quivering voice days. And I remembered what it felt like when my concerns as a voter were met with impatience, anger and real hostility.

In recent years, I’ve seen our municipal government become a place where lines have been drawn, compromise has become a distant and unlikely outcome and anger rules the day.

Barney Frank, a respected, senior member of Congress says “government is what we do when we want to work together.” As a councilman I will work to make that sentiment practice. I will strive to ensure Borough Hall is always an open forum where working together is what we do while trying to maintain and improve our community. I will endeavor to answer questions directly, succinctly and factually, and if I cannot I will tell you so and work to find the answers.
I pledge to do my utmost to be prepared and to contribute in a spirit of progress and cooperation. Beyond this I can make no promises.

--Kelly