New Jersey Board of Nursing member Avery Hart has announced she is a candidate for state Assembly in District #26, which includes Verona and 11 other surrounding towns. She and Wayne Marek will be on the Democratic ticket and will face incumbents Jay Webber and BettyLou DeCroce in the general election, which is November 3.
“I deeply care about the health and well-being of our state and its people, including their economic health and the health of the environment, and I believe that that my wide range of life experience uniquely prepares me to serve the public well as an Assemblywoman,” Hart said in a prepared statement. “I’ve held many different stations in life, from waitress and retail clerk to medical provider and professional consultant, and have interacted closely with people from all walks of life along the way.”
A former New York state Supreme Court investigative probation officer, Hart was a private practice family therapist for 20 years. She is also is the author of several award-winning books. “As a therapist, I have an empathic perspective and am keenly aware of the pressures people face. I also understand that solutions can be empowering or disempowering, depending on how they’re designed,” she said. “Economically speaking, I’m also concerned New Jersey’s lowered bond ratings, our ranking as 48th in the nation for new job growth, and on-going lack of tax sanity, especially regarding the property tax, which is literally driving good people out of the state. The incumbents have offered no new ideas or solutions for these problems. For example, they seem content with New Jersey having over 600 school superintendents for just 2,400 schools. If we ran our schools by county, we would need 21 superintendents, yet each school would still have a principal, and each town would have a Board of Education. That single step could yield tax savings of close to $100,000,000,oo annually for New Jersey taxpayers.”
A grassroots environmentalist in her off hours, Hart is the creator and co-founder of Kinnelon Conserves, which sponsored 8 Earth Day Fairs and serves as a local environmental watchdog. “As I see it, the natural world is a treasure, and water, especially, is wealth. Protecting NJ’s air, land and water now and for the future should be a priority in the Assembly. By contrast, the incumbents have voted in favor of weakening the Highlands clean water law by allowing more commercial development on the Highlands aquifer. They also voted to allow an unneeded oil pipeline to run through 4 towns of our district. I would have voted NO since the pipeline offers residents plenty of risk, but no benefit.“
Hart was appointed public advocate on the Board of Nursing in 2007. “Because of my work on the Nursing Board, I am keenly aware that that New Jersey faces a looming health crisis, in the form of a serious nursing shortage, just as baby-boomers are getting older. My work on the Board gives me insight and knowledge that I hope to use to avert a crisis. By contrast, the incumbents voted to refuse U.S. Medicaid dollars that would’ve helped New Jersey residents at no cost to New Jersey taxpayers, just because the governor did not want to appear to be cooperating with the president. That’s not right.”
Hart has been married to author Paul Mantell since 1978 and is the mother of two grown sons. “I am not a career politician, and frankly, I am running a shoe-string campaign, because I am not taking money from any special interests,” she stated. “I’m simply an honest, intelligent, caring person and independent thinker who has studied social policy, who can work well with others, and can draw upon a wide life experience to find solutions. If elected, I will not follow any ideology or party line. My goal is to bring fresh air and new energy to the New Jersey Assembly by replacing representatives whose environmental ratings are among the worst in the state, and who have not innovated as problem solvers. If elected I intend to stay centered and work every day to foster physical, emotional, economic, and environmental health in our state. ”
