Archive for ‘Hillside Votes '09’
STAR-LEDGER:
Former school board member Angela Garretson won a seat to the township council in June, opening a seat on the school board. The nine-member board unanimously selected [George Cook III] to fill that vacancy on Thursday.
“The reason I originally ran for council was because I wanted a better relationship between the council and board of education,” said Cook. “I still want to better that relationship.” MORE
Posted in BOE '09, In the Schools, Mayor/Council '09, Township Hall | 3 Comments »
Joseph Menza will be sworn in as Hillside’s new mayor on July 1 after winning a last-minute recount last week by seven votes.
Menza, who won the runoff election against Councilman Jerome Jewell earlier this month by just one machine vote and several absentee and provisional ballots, will take office at noon on Wednesday, July 1 at the municipal building.
The recount, which was requested by Jewell, resulted in Menza losing one paper vote, which officials said was invalid because of extra markings.
While Menza won the mayor’s office, the council remains under the control of the Hillside Democratic Committee by a veto-proof 5-2 margin.
The council is already flexing its partisan muscle by scheduling the annual organization meeting for 6 p.m. on July 1, four hours after the swearing-in ceremony. In the past, and in most communities, newly elected officials are sworn in during the organization meetings.
Posted in Mayor/Council '09, Township Hall | 25 Comments »
STAR-LEDGER:
After counting provisionals, the unofficial vote totals in Tuesday’s runoff for mayor showed Menza receiving 1,710 votes, eight more than Jewell, an incumbent councilman and Newark police detective who garnered 1,702 votes. MORE
Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 42 Comments »
STAR-LEDGER
The third time appeared to be the charm for businessman Joseph Menza, who upset Jerome Jewell Jr., the candidate backed by the Hillside Democratic Committee, to become mayor of Hillside last night by a margin of only six votes. . .
The township race attracted statewide attention, with gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker making campaign calls on behalf of Menza and Jewell, respectively. . . MORE
Posted in Hillside Votes '09, Mayor/Council '09 | 30 Comments »
Realtor Joseph Menza is leading Councilman Jerome Jewell by just six votes in Tuesday’s runoff election for mayor and three at-large council seats.
Menza, however, was not able to carry his council runningmates, meaning the Democratic committee will still control all but two seats on the seven-member council.
People in the Menza camp are attributing the council defeat to the “Deo vote.” Councilman Frank Deo, who ran with Jewell, seems to have been popular in some of the same districts Menza won.
The fight, which has included a four-way race for mayor in last month’s nonpartisan election, may not be over. Jewell and the Hillside Democratic Committee may contest a handful of provisional ballots, or votes recorded on paper rather than in the voting machine because of discrepancies with the voter rolls.
Deo leads the council race with 1706, while Angela Garretson got 1663 and President Carlisle got 1571.
On the Menza slate, Joseph Puglise got 1529, George Cook III got 1503 and Jean Miller got 1460.
Posted in Hillside Votes '09, Mayor/Council '09 | 14 Comments »
Mayoral candidate Jerome Jewell declined a challenge by rival Joseph Menza to address why his campaign received a $10,400 political contribution from something called the Democratic Governors Association and $5,000 from USPO in Elizabeth.
Menza campaign manager John O’Shea told PolitickerNJ: “One might ask what possible interest could the National Democratic Governors Association have in little Hillside. Once it’s determined who the USPO is, a determination of the reason for their involvement can also be made.”
Jewell and Menza face off in a runoff on Tuesday, June 9. Menza has been endorsed by the two other mayoral candidates who fell short in the May vote, former school board member Andre Daniels and Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates.
Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 66 Comments »
None of the four mayoral candidates got enough votes Tuesday night to win outright, so the top two vote-getters — Jerome Jewell and Joseph Menza — will face off in a run-off election next month.
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Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 112 Comments »
This is the sixth in a series looking at the campaign literature put out by candidates in this spring’s school board and municipal elections. We’ll take a critical look at the messages and rhetoric and invite readers to comment. Here’s part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.
As a prerecorded message from next-door Newark Mayor Cory Booker endorsing Jerome Jewell played on voters’ phones this weekend, campaign workers were busy canvassing the town with fliers attacking a council candidate running with one of Jewell’s opponents as a wife-beater.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | No Comments »
Joseph Menza with Jean Miller, Joseph Puglise and George Cook.
One is concerned about senior citizens. Another about the youth and schools. And the third about everyone else in between who are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the cost of living in Hillside.
Joseph Menza’s team of Jean Miller, George Cook and Joseph Puglise say they should be Hillsiders’ top choice on Tuesday for new leadership at Township Hall.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 9 Comments »
Jerome Jewell
Depending on which flier or Column A candidate you listen to at any given moment, the
Jerome Jewell team — backed by the Hillside Democratic Committee, which currently controls Township Hall — is both the incumbent team and the challenger team; the continue-the-progress team and the change team.
Jewell, who is finishing up his fourth year as an at-large councilman — a position to which he was first appointed in 2005 — has yet to give a single interview in which he explains his stance on the issues.
He has not returned calls from either the Star-Ledger or The Hillsider.
His running mates also did not return calls for interviews, despite promising they would. One of them, President Carlisle, referred questions about his platform and background to his campaign manager, explaining that he was running as team and did not want to make any unauthorized statements.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 9 Comments »
Sip Whitaker, Beverly Lynn, and Leonard Dupree with Shelley-Ann Bates, seated.
Two former rivals and father who serves on the township Recreational Advisory Council make up the at-large council team led by mayoral candidate Shelley-Ann Bates.
Former school board president Sip Whitaker, former school board member Beverly Lynn and Compton Terrace resident Leonard Dupree say voters should elect them Tuesday to combat Hillside’s high taxes and its government’s lack of concern for residents.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 3 Comments »
The Local Source newspaper this week endorsed Joseph Menza for mayor and three council candidates, one each from three of the four teams that will duke it out in Tuesday’s municipal election.
Hillside’s problems are both more dire and less complicated than present officials would have the public believe. What has been lacking are some of the most simple elements of good business practice, basic teamwork among council members and strong, involved leadership. Mayoral candidate Joseph Menza and Township Council candidates Angela Garretson, Beverly Lynn and Joseph Puglise will bring those elements to the governing body . . . MORE
Puglise is running with Menza; Garretson on Jerome Jewell’s ticket; and Lynn on Shelley-Ann Bates’ ticket. The paper didn’t mention Andre Daniels’ Team Hillside for Hillside.
Posted in Mayor/Council '09, The Hillsider says... | 4 Comments »
This is the fifth in a series looking at the campaign literature put out by candidates in this spring’s school board and municipal elections. We’ll take a critical look at the messages and rhetoric and invite readers to comment. Here’s part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.
The Menza and Bates mayoral campaigns are fuming over a series of attack ads targeting them.
The campaigns say the fliers — one of which was mailed to voters, the other lit dropped in town — come from the Hillside Democratic Committee, which is backing Councilman Jerome Jewell’s bid for mayor.
Most of what these attack ads claim is clearly untrue.
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Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 8 Comments »
At-large council candidates Jeffrey Dykes and Noemi Escobar.
One is a quiet, dedicated housewife. The other a career public servant who doesn’t shy from confrontation on the issues dear to him.
What Noemi Escobar and Jeffrey Dykes have in common is that they they think Hillside property taxes are too high, opportunities for youth here are lacking, and Township Hall needs new leadership — which they hope to provide after Tuesday’s non-partisan municipal election.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 9 Comments »
Barbara Rowen
, Hillside’s first directly-elected mayor after the township’s change of government in 1997, has endorsed
Joseph Menza for her old job.
“Hillside property taxes are out of control,” Rowan said in her first public endorsement in years. “Since I left office in 1999, property taxes have risen 55 percent. And that’s during a decade when inflation has been in the low digits.”
Rowen said she is backing Menza and his three at-large council candidates in the four-way race for mayor on Tuesday.
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Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 22 Comments »
PolitickerNJ reports: The three anti-establishment candidates for mayor presented a united front in City Hall for nearly two hours. They never mentioned Councilman Jerome Jewell - who didn’t attend tonight’s debate because of a family illness - but took turns flailing away at the local Democratic organization Jewell represents. MORE
Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 6 Comments »
Hillside’s embattled political boss needs all the help she can get these days.
That’s why state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Elizabeth, and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, D-Union, have reportedly set up a legal defense fund for her, according to PolitickerNJ.
Charlotte DeFilippo, the chairwoman of the Union County and Hillside Democratic committees has been under investigation by the State Attorney General’s Office.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09, The Hillsider says... | 7 Comments »
Shelley-Ann Bates
remembers when a good night’s sleep was a commodity in her neighborhood on the north end of Liberty Avenue.
That was two years ago, when the Ranch Bar & Grill was still open and its often riotous clientele liked to take the party outside at all hours of the night. Residents who slept in the homes surrounding the bar, once located on Liberty Avenue between Oakland and Bernard terraces, were desperate for help, Bates said.
“We complained to the the council, to the [Alcoholic Beverage Control] Board, to the police chief, to the fire chief. Everyone pointed fingers but nobody took responsibility for the situation we were forced to live in,” recalls Bates, a Bernard Terrace resident.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 39 Comments »
Eleven of the 12 at-large council candidates in next week’s municipal election participated in Monday night’s forum hosted by the League of Women Voters, answering questions about how they would stabilize property taxes, bring businesses into Hillside, and improve communication between the council, mayor and the Board of Education.
The four mayoral candidates, meanwhile, are scheduled to appear at their own forum Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the municipal building.
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 5 Comments »
Sandra “Sandy” Cureton, one of 12 at-large council candidates, says she’ll work with anybody at Township Hall to help Hillside.
But until election day on May 12, she’ll be on her own.
Cureton, a 30-year township resident, began her campaign a few months ago on mayoral candidate Andre Daniels’ slate. But on April 20, she announced her independence from “Team Hillside for Hillside.”
The candidate said the break was for a “personal” reason but would not explain her decision. She also said she is not endorsing any other slate and is “not discounting the Daniels slate, either.”
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Posted in Mayor/Council '09 | 16 Comments »
The township Planning Board has introduced its updated Master Plan after years of delays, according to a report in the Local Source.
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Posted in BOE '09, Mayor/Council '09, Township Hall | 1 Comment »
June Korzeneski
At the Board of Education’s annual organization meeting Monday at Hillside High School, board members installed retired teacher and guidance counselor
June Korzeneski as president and the newly re-elected
Angela Menza as vice president.
For the first time since 2004, the Hillside Democratic Committee will not have majority control of the school board after reform candidates swept all three seats in last Tuesday’s election for the second year in a row.
The Democrats now have just three members on the panel: Nagy Sileem, Ralph Humphrey and Angela Garretson, who’s running for a seat on the Township Council in next month’s municipal election.
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Posted in BOE '09, In the Schools | 5 Comments »
UPDATED with itemized spending by the Daniels team.
In politics, candidates generally need three things in order to win: a message, money and votes.
So far in the race to be Hillside’s next mayor, candidate Jerome Jewell has the money part down pat.
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Posted in Hillside Votes '09 | 9 Comments »
The campaign manager for mayoral candidate Joseph Menza has lodged a complaint against the Hillside Democratic Campaign Committee’s school board slate, claiming they failed to file required finance reports with the state.
In a letter to Election Law Enforcement Commission executive director Frederick Herrmann, Menza campaign manager John O’Shea says the HDCC’s Committee For Sensible School Spending “completely defied the statutory requirements of campaign reporting” despite spending “well in excess of $15,000.00.”
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Posted in BOE '09, Mayor/Council '09 | 5 Comments »
