Candidate for Legislative District 12

Dave was born in Old Tappan, Bergen County, into a middleclass, blue-collar, pro-union family. He attended public schools, K-12, and graduated from Northern Valley Regional High school. Through grants and loans, he was able to complete college, Rowan University, and obtain a law degree from Delaware Law School.

After law school, like his father and brother, Dave joined the military. He served for 3 years as a paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He finished his military service with a deployment to the Middle East as part of a peacekeeping mission and achieving the rank of Captain and 6 medals, one with an oak leaf cluster, including a humanitarian service medal.

After military Service, Dave returned to New Jersey and has been in private practice specializing in Workers’ Compensation Law. For more than 25 years he has aggressively represented thousands of New Jersians who faced corporate and government opposition. Many of Dave’s clients were denied their lawful benefits. Others had their benefits unreasonably delayed or there were legal obstacles that needed to be overcome.

Dave, his wife Lisa and his stepson, Joe, live in Millstone Township. He served on the Board of Trustees of The Light It Up Foundation whose mission was helping disabled veterans and those suffering from traumatic brain injuries. Currently, Dave and his wife run a senior cat rescue operation to help find permanent homes for older cats.

Property taxes are the major concern of Dave’s friends and neighbors. And he is very upset that so many feel they will not be able to continue to afford living in New Jersey. As a middle-class taxpayer who can relate with the plight of his friends and neighbors, Dave has a 4 part plan to solve the problem: 1) Develop other sources of revenue dedicated to school aid such as allowing municipal and county governments to establish income and or sales taxes; dedicate an increase in the state’s sales and or income taxes to school aid; 2) Require municipalities, school districts and counties to share or consolidate functions, where possible, and require all school districts to be K through 12; 3) Cut wasteful spending starting with local governments merging health benefits plans ( The Pathway to Progress report contains some ideas); 4) Eliminating rules and regulations that are overly burdensome and costly to local governments.

Dave will fight for property tax relief for middleclass families as hard and tenaciously as the aggressive lawyer he’s been for the last 25 years when he went toe to toe with corporations and governments for his clients.