Marty Flynn knows Hamilton Township, and Hamilton Township knows Marty Flynn.
He grew up here, taught school here, and he is still working in education here, even after a long and successful career as teacher, coach and athletic director at Nottingham High School and in the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district. The St. Anthony’s High School graduate currently serves as athletic director for the reborn Trenton Catholic Preparatory Academy, which is situated on the same site as Flynn’s alma mater.
But, as Flynn himself likes to say, he is always seeking out new challenges, which is one reason that he has accepted the Hamilton Republicans’ nomination to run against Democratic incumbent Jeff Martin for mayor of Hamilton this fall.
Flynn spoke to Community News/the Hamilton Post by phone last month for a question and answer session. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Community News: First, tell us about the decision to become athletic director at Trenton Catholic Preparatory Academy.
Marty Flynn: I went to the former St. Anthony’s High School, and the opportunity that education afforded me was outstanding. I was in athletic administration for West Windsor-Plainsboro schools for going on 15 years, and then I worked for Mayor (Kelly) Yaede. The Diocese (of Trenton) had closed TCA in 2021, and there was a group of alums, some of whom I knew, who got private funding to reopen the school. They needed some people with state certifications to help run the school. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to work with kids again.
There was some heavy lifting the first two years, but I think we’re in really good shape. The lower school is outstanding, it has about 250 kids, the high school is coming up, with 200 kids this year. The high school is on the small side, but people really want to be there. It still has a Catholic, Christian environment, and many parents like that.
Community News: How did you make the jump from school administrator to the recreation director under Kelly Yaede?
Marty Flynn: As I look back at my career, I see these segments of my career where I was always looking to do something different. I was a teacher, I did a masters program, I wanted to make the teaching piece as good as it could be. Then coaching, then I refereed basketball for a long time. I’ve always been looking for new challenges.
In West Windsor, the school community would raise money for cancer research and Mayor Yaede was with the Cancer Society at the time, and we got to know each other. I wrote her a letter one day and, this sounds a little bold now, but when she was mayor the township health and recreation director position was open and in the letter I said, “Here’s some reasons I would be a good fit for the position.” I have a masters in administration and the recreation piece goes hand in hand with athletics. I was athletic director of both Nottingham and West Windsor-Plainsboro.
I wrote that letter, and the next day Mr. (John) Ricci, who was the business administrator at the time, said they wanted to interview me. I give Mayor Yaede a lot of credit for giving me that opportunity.
Community News: You later became the director of economic development for the township. Can you talk about some of your top achievements in that role?
Marty Flynn: A good friend of mine who did a great job had retired, Mike Angarone. Mayor wanted me to take on that role, and for me that was another challenge. I think we met the challenge. I got the opportunity to shepherd some really great projects to Hamilton. I say shepherding because it’s not easy to bring developments to fruition. There are rules and regs and land use issues that are ongoing to bring projects to the town. I’m very proud of the things we did.
There were three new hotels under our administration, on Route 130, that created a number of jobs. We had the vacant car lots on Route 33 that now have Panera, Aldi, AAA, Wawa, the auto shop. And we worked with the developer to refurbish the old Fairgrounds Mall.
The company that came in brought Walmart in there, they revitalized that whole strip mall. And again, hundreds of jobs came from that. The strip mall is filled to capacity now, Panda Express is there now. That whole area became very vibrant, so that was another thing we did.
Homestead at Hamilton, the senior living development on the corner of Kuser and Klockner, was a project we shepherded. That was a good solid program that gave a number of jobs, but also gave us an opportunity to take care of senior citizens. It’s a beautiful building, a beautiful facility. The FedEx distribution center also brought hundreds of jobs in.
I think of the Yardville Bank building as another iconic Hamilton building. They closed it down and it was shuttered for a while. A company came in talked to us about taking the property over. One of the concerns was, what were they going to do with that building?
The gentleman who bought it promised to refurbish the existing building. He kept it the way it was then put a two-story addition on the back and replicated the stone and brickwork so it looks like it’s pretty much extension of what’s there.
I was a White Horse, Yardville kind of guy, I raised my family in Yardville. That’s my side of town. When they put the fences up — they demolished the inside of the old building — my phone rang off the hook. People said, “You can’t tear that building down.” But they didn’t. They took care of it.
That’s going to be a goal of mine moving forward, to make sure we look to revitalize those areas I call them horseshoe areas, the oldest portions of Hamilton. Whitehead, Bromley, Greenwood, Lalor tract, all of that. Broad Street Park. Like Independence Mall. When we were kids, we used to ride our bikes down there three times a week. During our time, it had its highest occupancy in like 15 years. We brought the Regal theater in.
Obviously, the developer, the owner, he’s making a lot of those contacts. But once we hear someone is interested, we jump in on it, try to make it as efficient as possible for a business to make that commitment.
Just before we left, I did a report on occupancy in our strip malls because basically we’re a strip mall town. We were approaching 90% occupancy in our strip malls. Dover Park and out on Quakerbridge, there’s so many of them. Realtors always have a “For Rent” sign up, so it seems like there’s a lot of space open. But there’s not a lot of space open. That’s continued (during the current administration), but we need to ensure that that never goes down.
Like the real estate market. Real estate market in Hamilton was and is strong. People want to live in Hamilton and they want to live in the type of Hamilton we grew up in: a nice house, a rancher or a Cape or a 60’s split, they want a little yard, you can put a pool there. We used to get people come in and say they want to put multifamily units in, like what’s going on in Hoboken, Camden. I really didn’t have to tell them, I just told them to look around. Houses are being sold and bought on a regular basis. That’s the town we’re in. We have some really solid multifamily developments that are out there too, but people do want the housing piece that we have. I’m not sure that they want high rises.
Community News: So why have you decided to run as the Republican candidate for mayor of Hamilton in this year’s election?
Marty Flynn: I’ve been a public servant my entire life. I was raised here, I attended school here in Hamilton, I work here. I’ve purchased three homes, I raised my family here. The town has been very good to me.
I saw when I worked here how government works. I know I can do it. Being that public servant and looking for challenges all the time, I really feel I’m capable, I’m qualified, I’m experienced in administration and I really want to do it. It would be a culmination of my public service to be mayor of my hometown.
I have no other political ambitions. I’m not looking to go on to the State Senate or the Assembly. I’m in it because I know that I have put together an outstanding leadership team of Hamiltonians that believe we can do a better job. Former officials, business administrators, CFOs, former directors, rank and file employees. We’ve been gathering information so we can do it better.
Community News: How do you view the role of mayor of Hamilton? What is the essence of the job, in your mind?
Marty Flynn: I think it’s important to be, first of all, that lead administrator, CFO, something along those lines. But I also feel that job 1A or 1B is to be a person in the community, meeting with business groups, meeting with nonprofits, going to school events, being accessible to the public. Finding out what people want, what their needs are. Going to lunch in all of our businesses, grabbing a burger or a slice of pizza, making sure people know that I am accessible.
A lot of people in town know me, but as mayor that won’t change one little bit. I don’t have any special interest groups, I’m not attached to any big parties. This is going to be a leadership team made up of Hamiltonians that are going to make decisions for Hamiltonians based on their input. It’s not going to be just Marty Flynn. It’s going to be about a leadership team that’s an outstanding group.
Community News: Failures at the Trenton Water Works have residents concerned about the safety and quality of their drinking water. How would your administration handle the Water Works problem?
Marty Flynn: That is a big priority, there’s no question about it. We have to find out what we can do to improve the quality of the water. Some people say that being elected mayor, there are three or four basics that people want taken care of all the time, and certainly clean healthy water is one of them.
I think the issue now is transparency. And it’s been that way for a while. All of a sudden they’ve put up the water tower by Applebee’s in Mercerville. They’re going to drain it, or paint it inside or something. The problem is that we don’t know what they’re doing. That hasn’t been communicated.
We need to work closely with Trenton Water Works, with the administration in Trenton and the state Department of Health, and it’s got to be a working relationship, not politics. It’s got to be a partnership to make sure that our residents are getting good, clean, healthy water.
Community News: As mayor, what would be the top priorities for your administration?
Marty Flynn: I really think the overdevelopment of Hamilton is a big problem. When we started talking about running, way back in January, we had some really good meetings with people. We got the nomination Feb. 28 and we’ve been out knocking on doors since March 1. The overdevelopment, the warehouses — we’re approaching 10 new warehouses in three years. No one’s happy about that. I’m certainly not happy about it.
Two of our neighboring municipalities have brought legal challenges to stop that development. Our administration has not done that at all. They just keep coming. We had a master plan review on the budget in 2018, and when the total budget (in Hamilton) I think was $107 million, this was a $15,000 project to work with this company so they would give us the demographic study, the metrics, the population trends in Hamilton so we could do a thorough reevaluation of the master plan, so we could look at rezoning some areas of Hamilton. That was pulled out of the budget by the Democrats who were in there at the time. It should have stayed. We should have had the master plan review. I believe they have one ongoing now, but that was our plan to do that.
Not only the warehouses, but there are three major housing developments going up right now and there’s not a lot a transparency. People ask, what’s going on Klockner Road across from the pet cemetery? It’s a major residential development, but people don’t know what’s going on, and they should.
It’s a matter of good economic development, good land use, not giving developers an opportunity to come in and give them too many variances. There’s a project that’s going to come in on Route 33 and White Horse Mercerville Road, the former gas station. They got a lot of variances to have that project put in. Warehouses, housing projects, people are really very concerned. We’re going to do a strategic master plan review to gather information to see if we can correct some of those things that are out there.
The safety of our residents is always a priority. Our police and firefighters, they do a great job for us. I’m a little concerned that our police force is below 170. I’ve been talking to what I consider are experts, and I know that we should be above that number, and I’m going to make every effort to make sure we have a sufficient number of officers.
Community News: Your running mates are Gino Melone and Mike Chianese. Why should voters elect them to the Hamilton Township Council?
Marty Flynn: Gino has experience. He was a councilman in Trenton for a number of years. He worked in government, he knows bureaucracy, and it’s important that we identify that. I know that you can make it so that those bureacracies work as smooth as they can. I think if you have good managerial skills, you can do that, and I think Gino brings that to the table as well. He’s involved in many community organizations including Knights of Columbus, he’s very much entrenched in the community, and Mike is the same way. His experience as a director in the State of New Jersey, he was involved in major construction projects. The state police facility in Hamilton off of Route 130, that was one of his projects. So he would bring that construction piece, that director/leadership piece that we would need at council level.
Community News: The township is currently in the planning stages for a major new municipal complex, with plans to share the site with the school district. Your administration would inherit this project if you are elected in November. Do you have a vision for the municipal complex?
Marty Flynn: I think it’s needed, there’s no question about it. It should be a modern functional building that provides space for meetings. The present administration building is not large enough to hold some meetings. Our municipal workers there work in some cramped quarters and interesting spaces in that 90-year-old building.
I question the transparency of the whole thing. There was very little input from the community. People in our community didn’t get an opportunity to see what was going on. In the community involvement roundtable that was held last week (June 12), still nothing was presented by the administration. No Powerpoint, no charts, no who’s funding it or what it’s going to look like. The meeting was scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30, but it was over at 6:05. I just think that there should be some more transparency.
Community News: How do you feel the township fire division consolidation has gone for the firefighters and the residents and businesses of Hamilton?
Marty Flynn: For the rank and file firefighters, I think it was long overdue. I think the consolidation of our command center was a plus. But the business aspect of the consolidation was not handled well. Under the other model, the buildings were self contained, maintenance of the building, the lawns being cut, those kind of things were in place. When the township took it over, that wasn’t addressed.
There are a number of departments (in Hamilton Township) that are in need of employees and I think it shows sometimes. I think every single municipal building in Hamilton should be pristine. Particularly in those areas where they need to be a model, and I’m not seeing that, quite frankly.
Our firefighters do a great job for us, and it’s important that they’re under one command. But it’s the business aspect of it that I think wasn’t handled well.
Community News: How does your family feel about you running for mayor?
Marty Flynn: I didn’t say anything to anybody before I spoke to my wife Mary Ann. Sometime before the holidays, I was out to dinner with my wife and I said, “I want to run for mayor.” It’s funny because we’ve been together forever, and when I said that, she said to me, “Well, it’s about time you told me.” She could feel it.
She’s happy. She’s always supported me. Close to Christmastime, we had a big family dinner with my three children and their spouses and my grandkids, and we put it out there. They were great about it. They know who I am and they know why I’m doing it. To have their support is the most important thing.
I think people know me. I just want to make sure that they understand that we’re going to put together a strong, Hamilton-based leadership team, and we’re going to work hard to make Hamilton the best community it can be. That includes all the amenities: Octoberfest, Winter Wonderland, the Little Leagues, the Babe Ruths, all of the school functions, we want to make it all the best that it can be.
Hamilton Township mayoral candidate Marty Flynn, center, with township council running mates Gino Melone and Mike Chianese. (Facebook photo.),
