Governor Christie visited Middletown Thursday, but he found time to praise Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty.
"I’m a Republican, Mayor Doherty’s a Democrat. That hasn’t mattered one wit, not one wit, since October 29, 2012. He has worked for the people of his town and has reached out to me, given me praise when he thought I deserved it. Gave gentle criticism when he thought we deserved it. But, we’ve continued to talk all the way through it and I think it’s helped to make things in Belmar better. And this is just another example of it. I didn’t think about that issue, it was one of the hundreds of things I did in the immediate aftermath of the storm to try to make things better. I didn’t think about renewing it again this year, but because he came to one of my events, asked for some time afterwards, raised the issue with me, I went back and talked to our folks: can we do it? The answer was yes. And we’ve done it. And that’s the type of cooperation that you should both expect and demand from elected officials in the context of this thing. So, good job. Good job, buddy. Thank you."
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