Charlie Kratovil to Announce Candidacy For Mayor of New Brunswick

WHO: Charlie Kratovil (and his supporters)
WHAT: Campaign Kickoff Event
WHEN: Today, June 6 @ 4:15PM
WHERE: Steps of City Hall, 78 Bayard Street, New Brunswick

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–The founder and editor of the city’s bilingual community newspaper will be announcing his candidacy for Mayor in an event on the steps of City Hall later today.

Yesterday, Charlie Kratovil submitted over 125 signatures from New Brunswick residents who support his candidacy, more than enough to get his name on the November 6, 2018 general election ballot.  Charlie’s name will appear as an independent candidate above the slogan “Clean Up Brunswick,” and he will make clean streets, clean water, and clean government his top priorities.

Charlie’s candidacy marks the first electoral challenge to seven-term incumbent Mayor James Cahill since 2010, and Charlie is also the first independent candidate to challenge him since 2006.  In addition to being the Mayor, Cahill runs a private law firm on the side, and has been in office since 1991 when he took over the Mayor position from his cousin, John Lynch, Jr.

“New Brunswick is a great city with tremendous potential, but the people here deserve a full-time Mayor who will be 100% focused on cleaning up our streets, our drinking water, and our local government,” said Kratovil.

The campaign will continue to build upon Charlie’s years of volunteering, community organizing, and journalism with a grassroots effort to strengthen the movement for change that has been building here.

A resident of the city since 2004, Charlie graduated from Rutgers University has been giving back to the New Brunswick community for over a decade.  He has worked as a community organizer with two respected non-profit organizations, The Citizens Campaign and Food & Water Watch.  He also taught journalism students at Rutgers, volunteered as a staff member at nine different Model United Nations and Model Congress conferences, and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Rutgers Student & Alumni Federal Credit Union.

Since starting the New Brunswick Today newspaper in 2011, Charlie’s work has received high honors from multiple organizations, including:

• The NJ Society of Professional Journalists’ Stuart and Beverly Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism (for his coverage of the Cahill administration’s water quality cover-up scandal)
• The NJ State Governor’s Jefferson Awards for Public Service Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Champion for Justice (for his volunteer efforts to serve New Brunswick)