TOMS RIVER, NJ – Last week, Congressman Andy Kim condemned Toms River Councilman Dan Rodrick for using the words “Lakewood Style Development” in campaign mailers to describe the rampant overdevelopment championed by Toms River Mayor Mo Hill and Democrat Councilman Terrance Turnbach. That’s because according to Kim, “Lakewood Style Development” is only hate speech when Republicans say it…not when Democrats say it.
What Kim did not do was condemn Turnbach, a fellow Democrat and ally of Andy Kim and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy for using the same words in his own campaign back in 2017. That’s because like Kim, Turnbach now needs Toms River’s large Orthodox Jewish voting bloc to win his election this year.
Turnbach even sent out a campaign mailer disguised as a newspaper to intentionally mislead the residents of Toms River in 2017 that used the phrase “Lakewood Style Development” several times.
Now, Turnbach who won his seat on the Toms River Council in 2017 on a campaign platform of stopping “Lakewood style development” is also 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 2007 campaign that demonized Jewish residents in Toms River, 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 council. Instead, he blamed his campaign manager, Mitch Seim and said he had nothing to do with.
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.
Turnbach took his political theater to new heights in June when he opened his public comments by holding up a shtreimel, a large round hat covered in fur often worn by Hasidic Jews, and proclaimed, “This hat has become the symbol of overdevelopment and it’s disgusting.”
Turnbach opened a box and pulled out a shtreimel, a large fur-based circular hat worn by Orthodox Jews during the Sabbath and on holy days. As cameras flashed, Turnbach said that hat how represents overdevelopment in Toms River and he’s not happy about it.
“This is a Jewish hat. It’s worn by the Orthodox community on their sabbath and on their holidays and it’s become the symbol of overdevelopment by some people who run campaigns and it’s disgusting actually,” the Democrat councilman said as he tried to make amends with the community he slighted in his 2017 campaign. “It’s a religious hat, let me put it up here so you can see it.”
“In 2021, there are people trying to say that overdevelopment has to with the Orthodox community here in Toms River,” Turnbach said. “Nothing could be further from the truth and I think it’s disgusting that’s still being conducted.”
Turnbach said Toms River residents should now look at themselves in the mirror and see what we’re doing here.
“The building that’s going on in North Dover isn’t being conducted by the Orthodox community,” Turnbach said. “It’s being done to fulfill obligations that the council made on affordable housing. If me showing respect for this hat means I need to be voted off this council, then vote me off.”