Mayor Jeff Martin looks to continue what he started in Hamilton
The field is set. Incumbent Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin will face off against the GOP’s candidate, Marty Flynn. While Mayor Martin looks to continue success with a second term, Flynn is no stranger to Town Hall, serving as the Township’s Economic Development Director and Director of Health, Recreation, Senior, and Veteran Services.
Although Election Day is months away, The Trentonian sat with both candidates to discuss why they’re running, their goals if elected, changes they’d like to see in Hamilton, and more.
The most obvious question, “Why is Mayor Martin running for a second term?” had a pretty simple answer. To finish what he started.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I think we’ve been able to do in the first three years since I’ve been Mayor, even with very difficult circumstances going through COVID. There’s a lot of things I want to see get done and see through to the end.”
Some of these projects include a joint municipal complex with the school district, the continued “direct operational oversight” of Trenton Water Works by the DEP, and the fire consolidation plan, each of which the Mayor calls “multi-year processes.”
“I want to make sure I get another term to keep them moving forward and Hamilton moving forward,” he said.
Looking back now on his first term, the incumbent Mayor thought his biggest accomplishment was handling the pandemic.
“I think we did a great job through Covid, an unexpected challenge right away, but I think we met it and we met it head-on,” he said.
According to Martin, with federal assistance, the Township was able to provide “roughly threequarters of a million dollars” to small businesses from 2020 to 2021. The “backbone of the community”, as Martin called them, keeping small businesses alive during Covid was important.
“The assistance we gave to our community, especially our small businesses, at a time when they were really hurting, scared, and anxious about what their future was, we kept them here in Hamilton and kept them going and now they’re back to doing, many of them, what they were doing pre-pandemic.,” Martin added.
If elected for a second term, aside from the continuing projects, Mayor Martin hopes to continue working with the school district, making the best of unexpected turns, and working with any newly elected government officials.
As far as changes if elected for a second term, Martin sees changes in staffing on the horizon due to retirement, but he believes they’ve done a great job so far.
“I’d like to think overall, we’ve done a pretty good job with being responsive to our residents’ and businesses’ needs, we’ve tried to be transparent when anyone asks any questions. We told them what we were doing and why we were doing it. And we had a good collaborative process.”
The biggest challenge in Hamilton? Inflation.
According to the Mayor, it’s not just a governmental entity issue but also for businesses and residents.
“We have to, as a government, be cognizant of it. Be cognizant of how it’s impacting people. We have a lot of seniors in town, people who are on fixed incomes. We need to redouble our efforts to watch our expenses, to watch our revenues, and to make sure they match,” he said.
Martin also added that the support of private grants will also help alleviate some of the pressure from inflation.
When asked about his opponent being a staff member of former Mayor Yaede, who he beat in the 2019 Mayoral election, Martin said “Everybody’s different.”
He continued, “Just because you worked for an elected official doesn’t mean you would’ve made the same exact decisions that they made in those same set of circumstances.”
When asked about the challenges Hamilton faces as officially having the largest population in the county Mayor Martin said he must be a “leader”.
The Mayor believes due to Hamilton being the biggest town they have the manpower and resources to accomplish what others can’t, specifically during the pandemic.
“As the biggest town, we had the nursing staff and the health staff to really be able to take that on,” he said. “We had to go and be the leader in that endeavor.”
In closing, Martin wanted to express his love for Hamilton and remain a “boring” Mayor.
“I love this job. Not every day, some days are much harder than others, but I really do love this job. I love getting to know the people that make up this town, the businesses that make up this town, that really make Hamilton the biggest small town.”
Martin who once called himself boring said it was a goal of his to stay off the front page of the Trentonian with scandals.
“I view part of my role as putting the town in the best position forward so our residents and businesses can thrive in it. Without a heavy-handed government, without a government causing distractions or things like that. If we’re able to do the things we want to do, we should melt into the background and let people go on and enjoy their lives without even thinking about us, ” he said.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I think we’ve been able to do in the first three years since I’ve been Mayor, even with very difficult circumstances going through COVID. There’s a lot of things I want to see get done and see through to the end.” Jeff Martin