LONG BRANCH – The train tracks split east from west outside the law offices of Adam Schneider, who’s been mayor of this seaside burgh for 28 years, and now faces the May 8th prospect of a second showdown with his old nemesis John Pallone, the younger brother of U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6).

After having run with Schneider in 1990 and won, John Pallone broke from the mayor, ran against Schneider in 1994 and lost.

He returned to run on the Schneider ticket in 2010.

Now he’s opposing Schneider, and the mayor says the only reason for the split is young Pallone’s ambition.

“His big accomplishment according to him is he stopped us from spending $270,000 on high tech garbage cans,” Schneider told InsiderNJ. “He didn’t lead any charge against that. We all said, hmm, that’s a lot of money for garbage cans. We ended up buying four of them to see if they worked. That’s his big accomplishment? And he didn’t even do it. This is a completely unnecessary election.

“He’s fine as a councilman,” the mayor added. “I’ve seen zero leadership skills out of him. He can’t make a decision to save his life. When he told me I said, ‘John, you’re nature is to placate people. That’s fine as a legislator but it sucks for decision-making. Because every now and then you’re going to say no to someone, piss them off and you might lose a vote and that’s the nature of the job. It’s what I do. You can’t just play to the crowd. The mayor doesn’t have that luxury.’

“From 1994 to 2008 we got a lot of work done. He left town and came back in 2008,” Schneider recalled. “Then he told everybody, ‘I’m never going through that again, and I’m not running against Adam again. I want to be part of the team and work together.’ And he has yet to articulate a reason as to why he’s doing this. The only reason we’ve heard out of his mouth is one he wants to be mayor. He has been running for mayor for a year now and he has yet to say why. He can’t point to a policy difference. He can’t point to a decision. And for the most part he voted for everything. He voted for eight straight budgets, which in the last two years didn’t raise taxes. He’s voted for almost every new development and almost everything else we’ve done.  So he’s running against me. He’s made the decision to break up a team that was getting a lot accomplished – and it’s the second time he’s done it.”

What does Frank Pallone have to say about it?

Schneider says he saw the congressman at an event last week and the two men were friendly.

“He hasn’t said a whole lot about his brother,” said the mayor. “My sense is he’s not that involved.”

The first time he sat down with the defectors, John Pallone and Councilwoman Mary Jane Celli, Schneider said the councilman squirmed on the subject of the mayor’s election.

“John and Mary Jane sat there and John said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,'” recalled the mayor, imitating a weak and anemic sounding voice. “I told him, ‘I know what you’re going to do because I’ve dealt with you. I’ve been through it before.’ I was watching how he was handling issues that weren’t that complicated. He’d walk into a meeting. ‘I don’t think I’m voting for that.’ You think maybe you’d want to talk to us first? Maybe we’ll agree with you. The handwriting was very clear. Both he and Mary Jane had said things about me behind my back. It was put up or shut up time for them. I said, ‘John, you realize you just changed the working dynamic for everybody and his response was [weak and anemic voice] ‘Why?’ If you have to ask that question, if you don’t already understand it, I can’t help you.

“I think there’s still bitterness,” Schneider added. “He lost an election he was supposed to win. I was supposed to lose in 1994. I think he’s watched everything good that’s happened. He came in and he was part of it for a little while.”

Then he inevitably went the way of 1994, the mayor argues.