Toms River’s mayor is suing the school district where he worked for more than 20 years, claiming tenure charges against him are part of a “deeply troubling and unprecedented” campaign of political retaliation.

Daniel Rodrick, an educator and longtime township councilman who became mayor last year, filed the lawsuit in Monmouth County Superior Court last week.

Rodrick’s case claims that his political foes played a role in the Middletown Township Public School district pursuing an internal investigation against him.

“This is about more than my job—this is about protecting taxpayers and standing up to powerful political insiders,” Rodrick said in a statement released by his lawyer, Donald Burke. “When entrenched interests realized they could not intimidate me into silence, they tried to

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