"Facing the Future Together"

On my first morning as mayor, the sun was out-and so was I, walking the streets of a city I've loved and had been part of all my life. With my family as a boy, I romped on the beach, swam in the Atlantic and wolfed down sandwiches from my uncle's delicatessen. After law school, I returned to Long Branch, rented my first apartment and began practicing law, with no thought of ever involving myself in politics.
Nevertheless, in 1984, when I walked into the local headquarters of Walter Mondale's presidential campaign and offered to work in his behalf, one of the other volunteers asked if I was interested in running for office. "You can't be serious," I replied, but at his suggestion, I worked on a local campaign and then joined a successful effort to save part of a local nature area from development (it's now a park). I was irretrievably bitten by the political bug.

In 1986, I ran for a seat on the city council, and although I lost, I found it to be the most compelling thing I had ever done. So, in 1990, I ran for mayor and won. However, my experience on the council was not that I had imagined it would be. Instead, it was four years of frustration and disappointment. My colleagues were all just as interested as I was in the future of Long Branch, but any comprehensive planning was stymied because no one could agree on anything. more of Mayor Adam Schneider's published article