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January 12, 2019 – January 18, 2019
GOP Legislator Blames Trump for Forging Path of Incivility
By Bill Bonvie Staff Writer
Governor Phil Murphy swears in new Evesham Democratic Mayor Jaclyn Veasy.
Photo By Josh DeMers
TRANSITION OF POWER
Governor and Senate President Show Up to Swear In New Democratic Mayor, Councilwomen in Evesham By Mark Hatoff
For the Pine Barrens Tribune
EVESHAM—Democrats officially took control on Jan. 2 of Evesham Township Council for the first time since the municipality’s change to partisan elections in 2009, with Democratic Governor Phil Murphy and Democratic State Senate President Stephen Sweeney showing up to administer the oaths of office to new Democratic Mayor Jaclyn Veasy and newly elected Democratic Councilwomen Patricia Hansen and Heather Cooper.
“The reason I wanted to be here is this is one of the most consequential communities in our state, both in its size and its heft,” Murphy told a standing-room only crowd attending the ceremony. “It punches above its weight, not just in Burlington County, but in this region. Its impact is felt far from here.” Veasy, a lifelong Evesham resident and senior claims adjuster at GEICO Insurance who has spent a decade in the insurance industry, is just the third mayor of Evesham—and first official Democrat to hold the position—in the
last 29 years, following Randy Brown, who served from 2007 until the start of this year, and his predecessor, Augustus “Gus” Tamburro, who was mayor from 1991 until 2007. Veasy defeated former Republican Councilman Steve Zeuli in November’s mayoral race followi ng Brow n’s announcement almost two months before that he would be stepping down at the end of his term, despite winning a June 2018 GOP primary. “First of all, mayor—how does that See TRANSITION Page 22
MOUNT HOLLY—Throwing political caution to the winds, 8th District GOP Assemblyman Ryan Peters has posted a 58-second video on his Facebook page, later shared on the Burlington County Republican Committee’s Facebook page, taking President Donald J. Trump to task for his words and tweets that he believes are undermining civility in the nation’s capital. In the video, Peters called for a spirit of cooperation between Americans with opposing views on how government should work. In a subsequent phone interview with the Pine Barrens Tribune, Peters acknowledged that putting up the video “probably wasn’t the greatest political move I’ve ever made” and was something he decided to do “probably much to the chagrin of my staff and other folks.” But then, he described himself as not being a “poll-tested politician”—that is, one who thinks, “What should I say to get re-elected.” While his comments, he said, also generated “a lot of blowback” from people on both the far right and the far left, he claimed they had resonated well with many more of his constituents, who let him know that he had managed to capture their own feelings about the current acrimonious political climate. “I just wanted my constituents to know where I stood as their elected official,” said Peters of his motivation to post the video. In the video, which he posted on Jan. 4, after first expressing dismay over “another disturbing headline” in regard to the obscene reference made to “a sitting president” by incoming Rep. Rashia Tlaib (D-Mich.), Peters somewhat surprisingly admitted, “I can’t say I blame the congresswoman,” who he said was “merely following the path of President Trump.” The assemblyman then characterized the president as “a master of the name game who constantly puts an insulting adjective before everybody’s first name.” Peters, a former Navy Seal who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, noted that the “utterly disrespectful behavior we’ve come to expect out of Washington, D.C.” reminded him of a painting he had recently seen and taken a picture of to “remind myself to be better.” The painting, which he displayed in the video, was of the late former House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Jr. sitting by the bedside of President Ronald Reagan in the hospital after the latter was recovering from a 1981 assassination attempt. “We need to return to this level of civility, not the divisive rhetoric we currently have,” he See INCIVILITY Page 19
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