Why I Am Running For State Senator In The Republican Primary by Harold Herskowitz

I would like to take a moment to introduce myself to the voters of Howell, Wall, Point Pleasant, Belmar, and all the other Shore communities in the 30th district.

I have been an active member in the Lakewood business community for many years. I am the owner of Toys For Thought, one of the largest specialty toy stores in the country. I created our store from a hundred year old building that was previously being used as a crack house. I have tried to help revitalize Lakewood's crumbling main street, and although it has been a slow transformation, we are making some headway.

A few years back I started to realize that so much of the progress that we could achieve to help our communiites thrive was being thwarted by a group of self serving entrenched politicians. Lakewood began to suffer from explosive growth that is now threatening to damage neighboring townships as well. There were so many important issues not being dealt with, and I decided to challenge the one person that I felt was the foundation of all that was wrong with Lakewood. I ran against Robert Singer for his Township Committee seat. Surprisingly I received 46 percent of the vote, and although I lost in the primary, I was able to scare Singer off from running against (our current Mayor) Isaac Akerman in the primary election.

I never felt that challenging our Entrenched Senator for his 30th district seat would be a viable option until I realized that many of the other towns in our district feel the same way about Singer as Lakewood does. For over twenty years our Senator has worked hard for his donors and corporations, but not for the good of the people. He has been involved in helping builders, and organizations that have hurt the taxpayer, and allowed the explosive growth that threatens our way of life.

I am not accepting any donations from organizations, businesses or special interests and will have no need to cater to their needs. I have a few immediate goals, and will work tirelessly and join other legislators that are trying to enact real significant change. I am not going to blindly say I will try to lower property taxes. I will work hard to find alternate school funding that is both equitable and fair to all that understand that our children need to learn, but not at the expense of taxing our homeowners out of their homes. I will work hard to slow the explosive growth in Lakewood without any regard to crumbling infrastructure in our area. I will address the needs of businesses, as I know all too well the challenges of running a small business. I will strive to bring respectable jobs and manufacturing back to our area without damaging the character of our communities. I look forward to being able to help our idyllic shore towns recover from the tragedy of Hurricane Sandy.

In the future I will be writing more detailed articles about my campaign. I would like to thank the Patch websites for giving me an honest open forum to do so. I also hope to hear from all concerned citizens about what matters most to them.

Respectfully yours

Harold Herskowitz

hhforsenate@gmail.com