Apparently voters like the direction in which South Brunswick is heading.
How else to explain the overwhelming victory by the three Township Council incumbents?
Democrats Carol Barrett and Republican Ted Van Hessen won by large margins, Ms. Barrett garnering 6,455 votes and Mr. Van Hessen taking 6,344. Democrat Edmund Luciano won a closer race, garnering 5,977 votes and besting fellow Democrat Charles Carley by 163 votes.
The tone of the campaign was fairly harsh – something of a tradition in South Brunswick – but in the end the attacks and the misinformation pushed by the campaigns appeared to matter little.
Many of the voters interviewed by the South Brunswick Post at the polls said they were most concerned with the presidential race and that they voted straight down the party line. Others said they backed the candidates with whom they were familiar – either personally or through their work in office. And few said they were affected by the campaign fliers and ads, many of which were negative.
Regardless of why they voted, the fact remains that township voters sent the incumbents back to office for another four years and they set up a situation in which the Republicans will have to win both available seats next time out to win a majority on the council.
More importantly, the council needs to put this rancorous election behind it and focus on the issues most important to voters. The Democrats have the majority and the apparent confidence of the voters but Mr. Van Hessen, by virtue of his strong showing Tuesday, is a voice on the council that must be listened to.
The issues are:
Open space acquisition: Both parties were clear in their support for buying open space, though they differed on strategy. Democrats have said they want to buy whatever land becomes available, while the Republicans believe residential land should be targeted.
It’s time to put that disagreement behind them and aggressively buy up as much land as possible. That means identifying undeveloped parcels, approaching developers as they prepare their plans and making valid offers. The idea is to preserve as much green space as possible.
We also think the council should consider the Republicans’ proposal to boost the open space trust fund with added cash, though we disagree with the GOP’s call to take money out of the general budget to do so. The council should consider placing a question on the ballot in November 2001, if not earlier, seeking to increase the open space tax and expand its buying power.
The budget surplus and taxes: Republican attacks on the Democrats’ fiscal acumen appeared to fall on deaf ears. And for good reason. The Democrats have managed to keep taxes from rising during the past four years, while also maintaining a healthy budget surplus. They’ve been able to do so because they’ve been tracking economic trends – how many new taxpaying ratables are likely to come on line in the next few years, what the debt load is, and so on.
The council needs to keep up this approach, while also remembering that national and state economies can alter their projections, sending the township’s tax rate skyward. Projections need to be updated as frequently as possible.
Zoning: The two parties spent much of the last several months fighting a rhetorical war over development, a war based more on innuendo and misinformation than on fact.
The facts are these: Both parties have spent the better part of the last decade reducing single-family zoning densities to reduce the number of children coming into South Brunswick schools. The difference is that Democrats advocate planned adult communities, seeing them as a way of providing a kind of housing lacking in town, while the Republicans advocate commercial development.
Both approaches have their merits, but the Democrats have the majority. It’s time we see if their commitment to senior housing works.
