Meet Republican County Commissioner Candidate, and Middletown Mayor, Tony Perry

Meet Middletown Mayor Tony Perry who has recently won the endorsement of The Monmouth County Republican party for the position of County Commissioner. In November 2017, Tony Perry was appointed to the Middletown Township Committee to fill a vacancy left by Stephen Massell. At the time, Perry was the son-in-law of then Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger. The five person Committee, which included Scharfenberger, voted unanimously to appoint Perry. This led to immediate claims of cronyism and nepotism from residents and political opponents.

Mayor Scharfenberger defended the choice, stating that "nepotism means someone gets a position based on a relationship," while arguing Perry was chosen because he was the most qualified candidate. Perry’s background included serving as Chief of Staff to State Senator Joseph Kyrillos and sitting on the Middletown Planning Board. Perry was later sworn in as the youngest mayor in Middletown’s history in 2019 due to being voted mayor by the same committee that appointed him, and has since won re-election.

In October 2018, over 11,000 residents received an email blast attacking Perry’s Democratic opponent, Sean Byrnes. The email was sent by a group called "Residents Against Over Development," but links within the email redirected to Perry’s personal Twitter account. The Township Administrator revealed that the municipal email list had been obtained via an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request by an anonymous Gmail account (Watch07748@gmail.com). Under New Jersey law at the time, the town was legally obligated to provide the list to anyone who requested it. Residents were outraged that their private contact information, provided for non-partisan government services (like garbage pickup and road paving), was being used for aggressive political messaging. Perry defended the legality of the move, noting that his campaign team had obtained the addresses through a 100% legal OPRA request, though he initially distanced himself from the specific "mysterious" email account that made the request.

The truth of the matter is that Middletown Mayor Tony Perry is the product of nepotism, party boss politics, and the same republican party status quo in Monmouth County, that has resulted in decisions such as the Republican controlled board of commissioners illegally raising their own wages by $3,000, attempting, and failing to seize a private airport for Netflix through wasting nearly a million in taxpayer money, and the same republican government here in Monmouth County that has voted to raise taxes on the rest of us by 23 million. Tony Perry may have a young face, a new smile, and a different tone, but he's part of the same old republican establishment politics here in Monmouth County that has failed to meet the moment. We need a change in Monmouth County, and that starts by electing new leadership that's up to the task.