ROBBINSVILLE — Call him the cowardly elephant.
Republican Mayor Dave Fried slugged back at Bill Spadea in an interview Wednesday after he said the conservative radio host twice called him a “coward” on air during morning-drive shows on New Jersey 101.5.
Spadea apparently thought little of the mayor’s decision to cancel last week’s Community Day Festival as officials grapple with multiple coronavirus outbreaks in the township.
The uptick in cases forced officials to close the high school and cancel sports for the week, with in-person instruction resuming Monday.
Fried had his staff reach out to the station with an offer to debate Spadea after the host attacked him. The mayor said Spadea doubled down on the “coward” barb Wednesday morning, leaving him miffed at the host for omitting critical facts about the process.
Fried defended his decision to cancel the festival, saying it would have been irresponsible and a “colossally bad idea” to allow the event to go forward during a pandemic that has killed roughly 679,000 Americans, and more than 27,000 New Jerseyeans.
“I think it’s OK to criticize our decisions, and certainly OK not to agree with them,” Fried told The Trentonian in a phone interview Wednesday. “But not to call someone a coward when they want to come on the show. He didn’t have all the facts. All that [festival] would have done would have made a bad situation worse.”
As of Sept. 17, 220 students throughout the district were quarantined, according to the district’s COVID-19 tracker. That includes 67 in Sharon Elementary, 68 in Pond Road Middle School and 85 at Robbinsville High School.
The district reported 22 positive coronavirus cases among students at the high school and one staff member, four at the middle school and four positive cases in students and one staff member at the elementary school.
“We made a tough decision in Robbinsville,” Fried said, referring to closing the closing. “Nobody wants the schools shut down.”
A smattering of parents were on hand at the high school protesting the shuttering, Fried said.
The mayor acknowledged the township could have “done better” about communicating about the abrupt shutdown but stressed he has a duty to not act like a “coward” when lives are at stake.
“We’re in uncharted territory. Every day creates a new set of challenges,” Fried said. “I’m just a little shocked that [Spadea] did that without at least having context. People have called me a lot of things but ‘coward’ usually isn’t one of them.”
The Trentonian reached out to Spadea and representatives at NJ 101.5 for comment on the “coward” controversy.
Someone who answered the phone at the station said Spadea’s morning drive show wasn’t available online for review per company policy.
Spadea didn’t respond to phone calls to cell phones or a direct message sent to his Twitter account, but he has openly criticized Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy’s decisions while navigating the pandemic.
Spadea spoke out against a mask mandate for students in a recent editorial on the station’s website.
“Masks are for Halloween. Masks are for doctors who want to prevent droplets from entering a patients open body cavity. Masks are for bank robbers. Masks are not for children. Period,” Spadea wrote, touting finding from a Danish study that he said “was ignored by public health officials despite showing literally no difference between the mask wearers and non-mask wearers.”
In decrying the Republican-on-Republican smut-slinging, Fried urged one-time congressional candidate Spadea to be more responsible with his platform.
“This pandemic affects everyone,” Fried said. “We have lot of people out there giving people poor information. We should not allow political bias to interfere with public health. I think Bill should give both sides. I think I try to do the right thing. Both parties have been catering to the fringe of their parties, and I think most people fall in the middle. … Wouldn’t I have been called something else if I didn’t act? I’d make the same decision again.”
