Toms River, NJ – Toms River Township Councilman Terrance Turnbach who won his seat on the Toms River Council in 2017 on a campaign platform of stopping “Lakewood style development” is now saying the advertisements and newspaper he approved in 2017 are anti-Semitic and shameful.
Turnbach said he had nothing to do with his Democrat team’s 1997 campaign that demonized Jewish residents in Toms River that including mailings featuring Orthodox Jews and slogans that were meant to intimidate that religious sect. That team also featured Laurie Huryk, his Democrat ally on the township concil. Instead, he blamed his campaign manager. Turnbach did not name the campaign manager responsible for the ads by name.
Now Turnbach has declared the words “Lakewood style development” are shameful ones. Turnbach said that he never wanted to run for office in 2017, but was asked by his partner, Kevin Starkey, an influential pay-to-play Democrat power broker in Ocean County to run for office under Starkey’s Democrat party and did so reluctantly. Turnbach did not say whether or not Starkey had anything to do with those mailings.
After winning that campaign over Republicans with a strong anti-Jewish message, Turnbach, as he prepares to run for re-election this year says it wasn’t him. Now, to win office in 2021, he needs those very same Jewish votes he fought to keep out of Toms River in 2017.
“I regret that,” Turnbach said. “After the fourth mailer went out in my ward and pictured Orthodox Jewish men sitting around a table talking about Lakewood style development, I said enough is enough and I’m not putting this out.”
Turnbach said his campaign manager told him to put the mailer out and he refused. Despite not wanting the mailer, Turnbach still personally paid for and delivered a fake newspaper that demonized Jewish residents and sent that newspaper to the voters of the town.
“I told them let me lose, because this isn’t what I’m about,” Turnbach said. “We need to stop putting out sayings such as Lakewood style development, it’s shameful.”
