VENTNOR – Like boxers in a ring, two former mayors sparred during a three-minute round at Thursday’s Board of Commissioners meeting.
During the public portion of the meeting, former Mayor Tim Kreischer stood at the microphone to read a prepared statement in response to criticism from Commissioner and former Mayor Lance Landgraf but was cut off after three-minutes.
Although most municipalities have a three-minute limit on public testimony, it is rarely enforced during Ventnor public meetings. However, on Thursday, Kreischer’s comments regarding his administration’s demolition of a former ice skating rink to enlarge the Ventnor Library building were too long for Commissioner Lance Landgraf’s liking.
“You’re done, your three-minutes is up,” Landgraf said, which resulted in some angry words from Kreischer about his constitutional right to address a grievance.
Kreischer, who started his statement identifying himself as “Keyboard Warrior Kreischer,” was unable to attend the last meeting when the commissioners discussed what they labeled as misinformation being spread by keyboard warriors on Facebook about the Ventnor Professional Campus Redevelopment Plan.
In his statement published in Downbeach.com following the Feb. 12 meeting, and without mentioning Kreischer’s name, Landgraf said he was “disappointed” that a former city official – someone who should intimately understand the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law – was “continuing to spread misinformation” about the redevelopment plan that will result in building 33 townhouse units at the former Ventnor Professional Campus and reserve the front portion of the old brick schoolhouse for use as commercial businesses.
“Spreading these inaccuracies is a disservice to the public and undermines the hard work of our planning professionals,” Landgraf stated.
In response, Kreischer prepared a statement to read Thursday evening, explaining how the ice rink diversion occurred; however, he was prevented from finishing his statement.
After providing a litany of conditions regarding the then-beleaguered site, Kreischer said his administration came up with a “thoughtful and strategic” improvement plan, which included applying for and receiving a $450,000 NJ Green Acres grant to partially fund a better public facility “that served more residents than the rink ever did,” he said.
“We had an antiquated, money-losing ice rink, an inadequate library, a dilapidated cultural arts center, and no historical museum to preserve and display our rich cultural history, and we discovered our adjacent community building needed a new roof, new windows and HVAC repairs,” Kreischer said.
The city has been working with the state for about 10 years to finalize a diversion of open space that would be acceptable to the Green Acres program and allow the city to apply for additional open space funding. Until the diversion is approved by the Department of Environmental Protection, the city cannot apply for additional Green Acres grants.
No Green Acres objections were raised for years afterward, Kreischer said, and his administration was able to secure an additional $700,000 in Green Acres funding to rehabilitate the Fishing Pier.
Landgraf responsed that the state is holding back $300,000 from the pier grant until the diversion process is finalized.
On Aug. 15, 2025, the commission agreed to swap all 150 acres of the Ventnor West site for the .03-acre skating rink site the city built on in 2005 without Green Acres permission.
In a prepared statement at the Feb. 12 meeting, Landgraf said the decisions made by the Kreischer administration to remove the ice rink was a “catastrophic error.”
“By failing to follow the state-mandated diversion process, that administration effectively penalized every taxpayer in Ventnor. This violation has severely hampered our ability to secure Green Acres funding for new parks and recreation, as we are still working to rectify the loss of that recreational space in the eyes of the state,” Landgraf said.
He called it an "act now, ask for permission later" style of governance that lacked transparency.
“You invited me here to have a dialog (after) you ran a tirade against me for how many minutes in the last meeting,” Kreischer said. “I come to respond and participate, and you give me three minutes when you had more than 20 minutes to attack me at the last meeting. This is democracy in action. I come here to give responses and give my opinion and you limit me to three minutes. Thank you very much,” Kreischer angrily said.
“Our process here is the public gets three minutes,” Landgraf said.
Mayor Tim Kriebel said he sent emails to Kreischer requesting a private meeting to discuss the diversion issue in detail.
Thursday’s meeting ended with a request from Landgraf to go into an unplanned executive session to discuss “potential litigation” with no action expected to be taken.
Public officials may hold executive sessions and are not required to disclose to the public what happened at the closed session until the issue at hand is resolved.
Downbeach.com has requested that Kreischer submit his entire statement to be published here. We have yet to hear back from the former mayor.
Copyright Fideri News Network 2026
