Hamilton councilwoman to Mayor Yaede: You don’t have guts to debate Martin

HAMILTON >> One of Mayor Kelly Yaede’s biggest foes is daring her to debate her mayoral challenger after she went scorched earth on political foes during an unfiltered and uncontested interview.

Democratic operative Joe Fabrizi gave Yaede a platform to spout off against her enemies.

And she took the opportunity to bash council president Jeff Martin, Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried, councilwoman Ileana Schirmer, Mercer County Republican Committee chairwoman Lisa Richford and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

All of them have found themselves in the mayor’s crosshairs before, many times over the same issues the mayor retread in her interview Monday.

But the Republican councilwoman Schirmer got in the last word by upping the ante in daring Yaede to debate Martin before the election.

“If this woman is so proud of her accomplishments, I would love to see her take on Jeff Martin in a debate,” Schirmer said. “Be ready and willing to sit among an audience and brag about all the wonderful things you have done. ... I’ve never seen anybody in office from the realities that she has led Hamilton township in a really bad direction.

Yaede, the councilwoman added, has turned the township into “nothing more than an embarrassment.”

Yaede tweaked Schirmer earlier in the day when she suggested their relationship soured after Schirmer lost a senatorial race to Linda Greenstein in 2017.

Schirmer denied that had anything to do with her estrangement from the sitting mayor saying she knew her chances of beating Greenstein weren’t good when she entered the race.

Schirmer was hardly the only target Yaede went after during her interview.

She also chastised Martin over his alleged lack of leadership presiding over council meetings, calling the conduct of meeting-goers “absolutely abhorrent.”

Yaede said Martin and the Democratic-controlled council “looks foolish” by not cracking down on people’s allegedly boorish antics. She claimed one woman was “berated” for the “way [she] looked, [her] shape. And council heard it and said nothing. It’s a mess in council chambers. What kind of government are they running when people don’t feel particularly safe coming to council meetings?

“You are perpetuating it if you allow it,” the mayor said. “Jeff Martin has allowed that repeatedly over the last year. It’s a lack of leadership. If you cannot run a council chamber, how can you run a town?”

Martin, responding to the mayor’s charges, accused her of rehashing the same-old points of critiques.

“We gotta get her some new talking points,” he said. “It’s funny. I remember seeing a video where she declared Vinnie Capodanno to be out of order during a council meeting. Now she choose the same person as her council running mate. Maybe she needs to go back and watch the video, so she can see how council decorum was when she was a sitting council member.”

The mayor also attacked Martin and Fried over their stances on the township’s sewer billing dispute with Robbinsville.

Hamilton sued its neighbor to try to recoup more than $2.8 million it claims Robbinsville owes for its “fair share” of services.

Yaede claimed Martin vowed to “protect Robbinsville residents” rather than Hamiltonians.

Fabrizi called Fried’s decision to show up at a council meeting “unorthodox and new lows” and suggested he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Fried, a Republican, “decides to declare himself a Democrat.”

The mayor responded, “I heard that.”

The township mayor claimed Fried initially began going after her administration when she refused to get rid of her now-suspended chief financial officer John Barrett after he made what Fried perceived as disparaging remarks about Robbinsville’s budget a few years ago.

Fried fired back at the mayor, calling her claims”pathological” lies.

“It’s to the point now where she lies so often, and this is another example of her nonstop lying,” he said. “You listen to the new stories they tell, and they never tell the truth.”

When the topic turned to the unsuccessful attempted coup of the MCRC chairwoman, Yaede suggested Richford’s “foolish act” to award GOP challenger David Henderson the party line will be her “undoing.”

Richford survived a removal vote and will serve out her term, which expires next June.