Official has done nothing to earn a place in Legislature

What a surprise! Almost a month after Joe Locricchio ran afoul of the Monmouth County Repub-lican organization resulting from his performance associated with the Manalapan organizational meeting, he has decided that he'd rather run for the 12th District state Senate seat independent of party affiliation.

Apart from his petulance and lack of political foresight, what other valuable lessons has he given us as to his fitness to represent us in Trenton? Here are a few examples:

+ He (unsuccessfully) tried to change the township's form of government in what I can only describe as a blatant, self-serving attempt to become township mayor.

Is it possible he realized that the other Township Committee members, no matter what their party affiliation, would never agree to elect him to that position, having worked with him on the committee?

+ In an effort to show his commitment to good local government he opted to absent himself from the public vetting process when the committee interviewed those professionals seeking to do work for the township this year.

+ He managed to polarize the residents by taking an ill-considered, foolish and spontaneous utterance made by the husband of a fellow committee person and turning it into a circus that reflected poorly on the township and that no reasonable person took seriously.

He didn't even object to the statement at the time it was made - only after the fact, when we can assume he had some "outside" help. A wonderful example of independent thinking!

+ He's shown us how hard he is willing to work for his constituents by getting absolutely no results in his now 17-month committee assignment to get some sort of relief from the state Council on Afford-able Housing or the state Legislature in addressing the disgraceful maintenance increases the owners of the affordable housing units in Knob Hill have been forced to absorb (equal to the same amounts as the "market-rate" owners, notwithstanding the fact that they don't get the same amenities and that, by definition, they can least afford market-rate increases).

I guess the one overriding advantage of sending him to Trenton would be that he would no longer be a Manalapan township committeeman; that is, as long as he was unable to keep both positions.

Joel Bohm

Manalapan