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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
An open letter from council-at-large candidate George L. Cook III.
My name is George Cook and I am a candidate in the upcoming mayoral and council election on May 12. But that is not why I am writing this letter. I am writing this letter because of something I have seen and heard firsthand as I have campaigned in town. I have seen and heard that some want to win so badly that they are willing to divide this town across racial and ethnic lines to do so. Who these people are does not matter. Neither does pointing fingers and assigning blame. Not if we stop this now.
School board candidates Angela Menza, Shelby Robinson and Danny Santos had their wine and cheese fundraiser this afternoon at the real estate office of mayoral candidate Joseph Menza, who’s Angela’s cousin.
Seen there during the hour The Hillsider stopped by: school board member Nathalie Yafet and her husband, Steven, who said hello-goodbye and were off to hit the pavement; former school board member John O’Shea, who’s managing Joe Menza’s campaign; school board member June Korzeneski, who’s managing the school board slate’s campaign; and council candidates George Cook and Jean Miller.
CORRECTED: The drawing took place in the courtroom, not in the Clerk’s Office. UPDATE: With statement from Bates campaign.
Mayoral candidate Joseph Menza says he will go to court to challenge this morning’s drawing for positions on the May 12 ballot, which lists the council candidates running with him and Shelley-Ann Bates as “independents.”
The Bates campaign says they are exploring their options to address today’s ballot debacle.
The at-large council candidates running with Jerome Jewell and Andre Daniels were placed in the same column as their mayoral candidates. But each candidate on the Bates and Menza slates were given a lettered column of their own.
Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates’ team bested her opponents 3 to 5 times in the number of nominating petitions the mayoral and council candidates turned in last week.
This will be the first in a series looking at all 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.
First up: Jerome Jewell.
Jewell was the first candidate to mail out literature — and that was before he was officially a candidate for mayor.
The Hillside Democratic Campaign Committee sent out this mailer “from” Councilman Jewell in February, reminding everyone “to never forget” on Black History month. It does not mention Jewell’s candidacy.
The mailer evokes Barack Obama a month after his historic inauguration.
UPDATE — April 30 — Sandra “Sandy” Cureton announced April 20 that she would no longer run on the Daniels slate.
Andre Daniels came onto Hillside’s political scene in 2004 — but he wasn’t running for office or supporting a candidate then.
Daniels was with a group of parents seeking to reinstall Hillside’s Pop Warner football program, which had been inactive for eight years. Despite some friction from Township Hall, they persisted.
“When they said we couldn’t start up Pop Warner four years go,” Daniels told a crowd at his mayoral campaign kick-off last Saturday, “We did it.”
Hillside mayoral candidate Joseph Menza unveiled his campaign headquarters on Long Avenue this weekend and introduced his at-large council slate.
Running on Menza’s ticket are George Cook, Joe Puglise and Jean Miller.
Cook was a school board candidate last year affiliated with Andre Daniels, who is also running for mayor with a full council slate.
Puglise ran with Menza in the council ward elections two years ago. Puglise lost to 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish by four votes.
Miller, who Menza says has lived in Hillside since 1980, is new to Hillside politics. She is retired and wants to focus on senior citizens issues, Menza said.
So far, Menza and Daniels are the only two candidates who have declared their candidacies in what’s shaping up to be a crowded race for mayor.
Councilman-at-large Jerome Jewell has all-but officially announced his run. Second Ward Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates has been circulating nominating petitions but has not yet made any public statement about her intentions. Political observers doubt Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver will jump in the ring.
The Hillsider will profile all candidates in the township election. Stay tuned.
When Joseph Menza unsuccessfully ran for mayor four years ago, his big issue was property taxes.
This year, as he makes a second bid for Hillside’s top political office in May’s nonpartisan election, the big issue is still. . . property taxes.
Chances are he won’t sound like a broken record to Hillside voters. Since losing to Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver, township property taxes have climbed year after year as township spending increased and state aid decreased.
A lot more has also changed — for the worse. The economy is in shambles, the number of home foreclosures in Hillside is rising, and home values have plummeted.
Perhaps the tax issue this time around may convince more voters to pick Menza, the 49-year-old owner of Menza Realty on Liberty Avenue, over the insiders at Township Hall.
Hillside Township Council candidate George Cook III appeared on Fox News personality John Gibson’s daily radio show last week after a column Cook posted on his blog sparked some debate in the blogosphere.
Cook points at urban homicide statistics and cites a study showing a rise in “black on black murder” last year.
“Many will not like this next statement,” Cook writes, “and I really don’t give a damn because to me the lives of our children are more important than an adult’s feelings.
“Plain and simple you learn a respect for others and human life at home. It’s not a teacher’s job, a police officer’s job, or a sports figure’s job. IT’S THE PARENT’S JOB!”
Gibson read most of Cook’s opinion on the air and discussed it further with the Hillside resident.
UPDATE: In February, George Cook joined mayoral candidate Joseph Menza’s ticket. Cook, Joe Puglise and Jean Miller will seek the three at-large council seats as a team.
At a Township Council meeting earlier this fall, George Cook III got up to speak at the microphone.
After asking his question — and expecting to get an answer — the council president curtly told him to sit down.
But Township officials will find that this Purce Street resident is not sitting down or shutting up. Last week, Cook, a regular at council meetings, told The Hillsider that he intends to be a candidate for one of the three at-large council seats this spring.
With Election Day six months away, Cook is already the fourth resident to declare his candidacy for May’s nonpartisan election. The others are activist Jeffrey Dykes, running for council; school board member Andre Daniels, who will run with Dykes for a council seat or for mayor; and real estate broker Joseph Menza, who will run for mayor again with his own council slate.
The Hillside Democratic Committee was blasted in today’s Star-Ledger by two Barack Obama activists for not doing enough to support the Democratic candidate for president.
Resident George Cook III, who’ll be driving people to the polls on Tuesday, told the Ledger that the local committee is “doing nothing.”
“I find this pretty odd, especially in a predominantly black town,” he’s quoted as saying.
The latest voting woe is that the bulk of new voter registrations may not get processed in time for the Nov. 4 election, the Associated Press reported this weekend.
That means first-time voters may not end up on the voter books and will be handed provisional paper ballots on Election Day.
Union County elections administrator Dennis Kobitz, a Hillside resident, says he’s been receiving 1,000 registrations a day.
Some of those must be be from another Hillsider, George Cook, who told the AP that he began registration drives in hoped of helping Democrat Barack Obama.
Hillside resident George Cook posted this video online about what folks at local barber shops have been saying about the upcoming election and the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.
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.
Jewell was the first candidate to mail out literature — and that was before he was officially a candidate for mayor. 
The Hillside Public Library will hold free screenings of films for Black History Month.
