Meet Wayne Council Candidate Jim Freeswick

WAYNE, NJ — Two candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination for a seat on the Wayne Council.

Jim Freeswick is facing off against Dennis Marnick Jr. for a chance to be the only Democrat on the Wayne Council.

Patch is putting together a series of candidate Q&As so readers can learn more about who is on their ballot.

See Freewick's unedited responses below:

- Full name: My name is Jim Freeswick, and I ask for your vote.
- Age: 76
- Town of residence: I’ve resided in Wayne Township since September, 1960, when I moved from Clifton to the Pines Lake section of Wayne with my parents at the age of ten.
- Position sought: I am seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party for Wayne Fifth Ward Councilmember in the contested Democratic primary election on June 2, 2026.
- Party affiliation: I am a lifelong Democrat. My opponent, Dennis Marnick, is a former Republican who recently switched to the Democratic Party.
- Family: Single
- Education: Hofstra University School of Law, Hempstead, NY; J.D., with distinction, 1976 Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA; A.B., double major in history and political science, 1972 Wayne Hills High School, Wayne, NJ; diploma, 1968 (first graduating class)
- Occupation: I am a retired attorney.
- Previous or current elected/appointed office (if applicable):

a.) Past two-term member of Wayne Township Historical Commission

b.) Wayne Hills High School 50th Anniversary Committee

c.) Past President of Wayne Township Democratic Club Member

d.) Passaic County Democratic Committee and Wayne Township Democratic Municipal Committee, having been elected from Ward 6, District 6 of Wayne Township in Democratic primary elections on June 4, 2002, June 8, 2004, June 5, 2007, June 8, 2010 and June 4, 2013; and from Ward 5, District 3 of Wayne Township in Democratic primary elections on June 7, 2016, June 4, 2019, June 7, 2022 and June 10, 2025

e.) President of the Student Council for the first two school years of Wayne Hills High School, 1966-67 and 1967-68 (elected and re-elected by entire student body).

1. Why are you running for this position?

Wayne politics has been a longtime hobby. In the summer and fall of 1972, I ran the McGovern for President campaign in Wayne from a storefront in the Preakness Shopping Center
that had been leased by the Wayne Democratic Club.

This is the second time I’ve sought the nomination of the Democratic Party for the office of Wayne Fifth Ward Councilmember since moving into Ward 5 in April, 2016 from Wayne’s Pines Lake neighborhood in Ward 6. (I moved from Clifton to Pines Lake with my parents in 1960 at the age of ten, and attended Wayne public schools.) The first time was in the Democratic primary election of June 4, 2019, when I lost to my opponent, Francine Ritter, by just 27 votes, 162 to 135.

I was the candidate of the Democratic Party in the general elections of 1999 and 2003 for Wayne Sixth Ward Councilmember; 2005 for Wayne mayor; and 2009 and 2021 for Wayne Councilmember-At-Large. I sought, unsuccessfully, the nominations of the Democratic Party for Wayne mayor in the Democratic primary elections of 2001 and 2025.

The winner of the June 2, 2026, Democratic primary election will face the Republican candidate in the general election on November 3, 2026. The winner of the general election will
fill the unexpired term of Democrat Francine Ritter, who resigned and moved out of town, which would be until December 31, 2027. In November 2027, there will be another general election for Wayne Fifth Ward Councilmember for a full four-year term.

2. What do you believe to be the most pressing issue in the community, and what do you intend to do about it if elected?

If nominated by the Democratic Party for Wayne Fifth Ward Councilmember in the June 2, 2026 Democratic primary election, and if elected to that public office in the general election on November 3, 2026, I will be an independent thinker and promote government transparency, a stable municipal property tax rate, and well-maintained roads. I am a proponent of high-quality public schools.

During Round 3, the Wayne Council made the wrong decision to approve a settlement by a vote of 8 to 1 (Yes-Ritter; No-Sadowski) on November 18, 2020 to allow the construction of a
four-story, 244-uinit (37 affordable) apartment building and a seven-story (one underground) tenant parking garage in the Preakness Shopping Center at the bend in the Alps Road extension. The Preakness Shopping Center is the wrong location for a residential housing development.

I am opposed to the Housing Element and Fair Share Plan (HEFSP) that was adopted by the Wayne Planning Board on June 30, 2025 and endorsed by the Wayne Council on July 16,
2025 by a vote of 4 to 1 (Yes-Ritter; No-Sadowski) to satisfy Wayne’s Round 4 Mount Laurel affordable housing obligation by allowing the construction of 1,183 housing units (236
affordable) in addition to the 244 units (37 affordable) previously approved for the Preakness Shopping Center, for a total of 1,427 housing units (273 affordable) in Wayne’s central business district, encompassing the Preakness Shopping Center, the Wayne Hills Mall and adjacent commercial properties. (Wayne’s Round 4 quota is 1,000 affordable units, and is required to adopt a zoning ordinance to address at least 25% of its “unmet need” of 898 affordable units, which would be 225 affordable units. The Wayne Council has not yet adopted a zoning ordinance to implement the HEFSP for Round 4.)

Under that Round 4 plan, the owner of the Preakness Shopping Center would be permitted to construction 353 housing units (70 affordable) in addition to the previously approved 244 housing units (37 affordable) for a total of 597 housing units (107 affordable). Construction of 1,427 housing units in Wayne’s central business district would increase traffic congestion and might require construction of a municipal parking garage to accommodate shoppers and diners (See Ridgewood in Bergen County). Additional parking garages just for the tenants in the apartment buildings probably would be required.

One of the great things about Wayne is that it does not have a “downtown”. Instead, it has shopping centers and strip malls dispersed throughout its 26 square miles, each with ample
surface parking and none of which have housing units or parking garages located on their premises (except, there is an above-ground parking garage next to the AMC Wayne 14 movie theatre in the Willowbrook Mall, near the river.)

Wayne should find other ways to satisfy its Round 3 and Round 4 Mount Laurel housing obligations. For example, a developer, Toll Brothers, Inc., has objected to Wayne’s Round 4 HEFSP on the ground that it does not include its plan to build 350 residential units (280 townhouses and 70 affordable rental units) on a 50-acre site at 1600 Valley Road (extension), the
current location of a five-story office building owned by William Paterson University (which would contain the 70 affordable rental units). The issue is in mediation.

In my view, a residential development at 1600 Valley Road would be preferable to a residential development at the Preakness Shopping Center. And if the state-owned property at 1600 Valley Road was returned to private ownership, it would be subject to property taxes levied by Wayne Township, the Wayne Board of Education and Passaic County.

I still hold the position that I took when I was a candidate last year for the nomination of the Democratic Party for Wayne mayor in the June 10, 2025 Democratic primary election that I
am open to the idea of Wayne purchasing land to donate to a non-profit organization for the construction of a residential housing project consisting entirely of affordable units to be sold or rented by the non-profit. Factors to be considered would include the land’s suitability for residential development, its location and current use (if any), the cost to purchase, the number of acres, and the number of affordable units that would have to be built to satisfy Wayne’s Round 4 Mount Laurel obligation. (Round 4 is for the ten-year period 2025 to 2035.)

On May 11, 2026, the Wayne Planning Board granted site plan approval for the construction of a 100% affordable, 113-unit residential development to be built and operated by a non-profit, RPM Development Group of Montclair, on land that had been acquired by Wayne Township at 1805 Valley Road in 2004. I supported that residential development when it was
proposed by Mayor Vergano last year. It will help satisfy Wayne’s Round 4 Mount Laurel affordable housing obligation.

3. What qualifications and qualities do you possess that make you best suited for the position?

My experiences as a practicing attorney, for the most part in civil litigation; an adjunct lecturer in business law and United States history at several colleges in New Jersey; Senior Law
Clerk to the Hon. Frederick B. Lacey, a federal district court judge in Newark, New Jersey, a law research assistant to an intermediate New York state appellate court in Albany; a reporter for the Ridgewood Newspapers, assigned to cover the Village of Ridgewood, New Jersey; a Wayne resident for close to 66 years; a student in the Wayne public schools from the fifth grade through graduation from Wayne Hills High School with its first graduating class on June 14, 1968, where I had been named the Outstanding Junior and Outstanding Senior and elected and re-elected President of the Student Council for its first two school years, a starting player on the first two varsity soccer teams and the 1968 league champion varsity bowling team; a member of the National Honor Society and a Wayne Hills delegate to the American Legion’s Jersey Boys State 1967 (where I did not meet a fellow Boys Stater by the name of Samuel Alito); a two-term member of the Wayne Township Historical Commission; a member of the Wayne Hills High School 50th Anniversary Committee; a 24-year elected member of the Passaic County Democratic Committee and the Wayne Township Democratic Municipal Committee; a past President of the Wayne Township Democratic Club, in which I have been a member for some 50 years; and my educational background noted above, are some of my qualifications for the office of Wayne Township Fifth Ward Councilmember.

In addition, as a private citizen I’ve attended all but seven meetings of the Wayne Municipal Council during the last nine years and five months; and addressed the Council publicly during the vast majority. Consequently, I am aware of the issues facing Wayne; and I will work with Wayne’s Republican mayor and eight Republican Councilmembers (on the nine-
member Council), cooperatively, in good faith, without rancor and with a view toward serving the best interests of Wayne Township, despite disagreements that inevitably will arise, especially concerning the best way for Wayne to satisfy its Round 4 Mount Laurel affordable housing quota.

And perhaps most significantly, I am a lifelong member of the Democratic Party; whereas my opponent, Dennis Marnick, is a former Republican, who just recently switched to the Democratic Party to seek the Democratic nomination for Wayne Fifth Ward Councilmember in the June 2, 2026, Democratic primary election.

4. Municipal tax increases have been a growing concern throughout N.J. How do you intend to address it in your community?

As the result of the adoption of a 2026 municipal budget by the Wayne Township Municipal Council at its meeting on May 20, 2026, the municipal property tax rate will increase by 9.305 tax points. A tax point is one cent per $100 of assessed valuation. That means that $.09305 will be added to Wayne’s municipal property tax rate, which means that property taxes
for the year will increase by $215.55 for the owner of a Wayne residential property with the average assessed valuation of $231,655.00. That is the highest tax point increase in Wayne’s
municipal property tax rate since at least 2007, and probably for a longer period of time.

The increase of 9.305 tax points is just the increase in Wayne Township’s municipal property tax rate. As the result of the adoption of the 2026-27 school district budget, the Wayne
Board of Education will impose an increase of 12.78 tax points in its property tax rate, resulting in an increase of an additional $296.06 for the owner of a Wayne residential property with an average assessed valuation of $231,655.00.
Furthermore, an increase in the property tax rate by Passaic County is expected as the result of the adoption of the 2026 Passaic County budget. The exact tax point increase will not be
disclosed until after the State adopts its budget for fiscal 2027 by no later than July 1, 2026.

The property taxes that are levied by Wayne Township, the Wayne Township Board of Education and Passaic County, can be stabilized by reducing spending, increasing the property
tax base, or both. Reducing spending entails prioritizing budget items and either reducing or eliminating spending with respect to one or more budget items. Increasing the tax base usually entails increasing commercial tax ratables, which has the effect of easing the burden of taxation of residential properties.

For example, if the Preakness Shopping Center is sold to a new owner who then renovates it and fills it with new businesses, the shopping center’s assessed valuation would increase.

Although the Wayne Planning Board granted the owner of the Preakness Shopping Center site plan approval to redevelop it, the owner requested and obtained, on March 9, 2026, an extension for another two years, until January 2028, of the site plan approval for the redevelopment. That was the fourth extension granted by the Wayne Planning Board. There were
three prior one-year extensions following a two-year grace period after the site plan was first approved.

That redevelopment plan does not include construction of the four-story 244-unit apartment building and a seven-story tenant parking garage that was approved by adoption of a zoning ordinance by the Wayne Council. No time extension for its approval is required from the Council or the Planning Board.

5. In a few words, what is your favorite thing about your community?
As discussed above, one of my favorite things about Wayne is that it does not have a “downtown”. Another one of my favorite things about Wayne is the Preakness Shopping Center.

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The Primary Election is June 2.