Contested
races alter school landscape
Warren has 15, Sussex 11 to beef
up next month's elections
Wednesday, March 01, 2006 • BY JIM LOCKWOOD AND MIKE
FRASSINELLI • Star-Ledger Staff
Forgive voters in Allamuchy Township,
Warren County, if they feel a little confused during the
April 18 school elections.
Last year, at the urging of school
district representatives who bemoaned how hard it was to
fill school board vacancies, voters in a referendum opted to
reduce the size of the board from nine to seven members. The
reductions were to begin next month.
But now some district representatives
have had a change of heart and want another referendum on
April 18 that would again beef up the board to nine
members.
Interim Allamuchy Business Administrator
Ed Pladdys called it "rare" to reduce the number of school
board members from nine to seven.
"It's double rare to go back up the next
year," he said. "Twenty years in the business, and I thought
I saw everything."
But it appears that the bleak local
election landscape has changed since last year, when six
Warren County races --including those in Allamuchy and
Greenwich Township -- had fewer candidates than open seats,
and just 11 of the 36 total races were contested. Candidates
said then that in two-income households, there just didn't
seem to be time to volunteer on school boards, or in local
civic organizations, for that matter.
But next month, 15 races in the county
--including Allamuchy and Greenwich -- will be contested,
and only four races will have fewer candidates than open
seats.
In fast-growing Greenwich this time, a
half-dozen candidates are running for three
spots.
Sussex County will have 11 contested
races, including in the Frankford, Franklin, Fredon, Sparta,
Stanhope and Stillwater districts, and the High Point,
Sussex-Wantage and Wallkill Valley regional districts. A
Netcong term in the Lenape Valley Regional district also is
contested.
In Sussex County, districts grappling
with referendums have some of the most contentious
races.
Several incumbents, including two
longtime board members in the Sussex-Wantage Regional
district, are not seeking re-election.
Sussex-Wantage had two referendums
soundly rejected at the polls last year, including a $20
million plan defeated in March and again in December. A
taxpayers group had strongly opposed both referendums. The
latter referendum was posed in two separate questions of
$7.8 million and $12.2 million, neither of which
passed.
In the wake of those defeats, school
board President Diane Rose and board member Gail Gardner,
who have been on the board for the past 12 and 13 years,
respectively, are not running again.
"We tried twice with a referendum and
we're not getting any place," Rose said. "The other
(taxpayers) group just has different ideas. I was told the
other day by a board member that there's no way they'll
consider a referendum again."
Now, seven newcomer candidates are vying
to fill the three open seats on the Sussex-Wantage school
board.
In other districts, some sitting board
members will face challenges at the polls.
In Sparta, where a $73.2 million
referendum to expand the high school has been set for Sept.
26, there are six candidates -- three incumbents -- running
for a trio of seats.
In Warren County, a familiar name,
Damiano "Damian" Fracasso, is in the running for an
unexpired term on the Hackettstown school board.
An attorney who practices in Mount Olive,
Fracasso last year ran an aggressive campaign for Warren
County freeholder, calling Freeholder Director Richard
Gardner "Slick Rick" and the "Prince of
Pay-To-Play."
But in a county where Republicans
outnumber the Democrats by a 2-to-1 margin, Fracasso was
soundly defeated by incumbent Gardner in
November.
Fracasso will face Joseph Itkor for a
two-year school board seat.
Among the other familiar names in
contested Warren County school races are perennial Great
Meadows candidate William Vonder Haar and North Warren
Regional candidate Frederick P. Cook, a retired teacher who
is a fixture at Blairstown Township meetings.
While the number of contested school
races has grown this year in Warren County, smaller towns
are still having a hard time getting candidates to run on
their local boards.
Alpha, Belvidere and Hardwick and Hope
townships -- all among the six smallest municipalities in
the county -- have fewer school board candidates than
available seats.
In Alpha, no candidates are in the
running to fill the one-year unexpired term of Larry Marino,
the beloved Phillipsburg police chief and youth football
coach who died of cancer in the fall.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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