There are races in all districts except Lambertville.
By: Mae Rhine
Tuesday’s election has contested races in all local school districts except for Lambertville.
Voters also will be asked to decide on budgets in all five districts Delaware, Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell elementary and South Hunterdon Regional High School.
In Delaware Township, none of the three incumbents Marjorie Egarian, Pamela Chamberlain and Christine Healey filed for re-election. Instead, there are five candidates willing to fill the three three-year terms available.
The candidates are: Princeton attorney and former Lambertville resident Lawrence Wohl; Ted Ellis, a member of the Delaware Township School Parent Advisory Council for the past two years and chairman of the school’s new Playground Committee; Catherine Mumford, active with the school PTA and the Delaware Township Athletic Association; Joseph Pulkowski, an aerospace engineer who has been active with the Delaware Township Education Foundation; and Thomas J. Warren, a government affairs employee at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick.
All five say they are concerned that teachers have been working without a contract since June. The last contract, a two-year agreement, called for raises of 4.2 percent the first year and 4.7 percent last year. Negotiations are in the hands of a mediator and are in the "fact-finding" stage.
Voters also will be asked to approve the school’s proposed $5,927,925 budget, an increase from this year’s $5,667,768. No new programs or personnel are proposed in the spending plan that calls for a decrease in the tax rate from 75 cents per $100 of assessed valuation this year to 67 cents next year. On a house assessed at the township average of $395,900, that means an annual tax bill of $2,653.
In Stockton, two candidates are waging a write-in campaign for the two three-year terms available. Kim Breidt, a former teacher and now a registered school nurse, and James Gallagher, owner of a publishing company in the borough, are facing off against incumbent Tracy Giannattasio, who has a degree in elementary education and sociology and is the wife of Stockton Borough Council President Andrew Giannattasio. Incumbent Diane Walker-Torkelson decided not to run again.
The budget calls for a hike in taxes of 9 percent. The total $484,276 tab includes a tax rate of $1.04 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, up from 95 cents this year. For the owner of a home assessed at the average assessment of $196,000, this means a tax increase of $176 for a total of $2,038 a year.
Stockton residents also would see a 13 percent hike in the taxes for South Hunterdon’s total budget of $6,918,591.
If the budget is approved, the average homeowner would pay $1,540 with a tax rate of 78.587 cents as compared to this year’s rate of 69.469 cents.
Taxes in West Amwell could rise by 2.5 percent with the owner of a house assessed at the township average of $344,576 paying $50.76 more or a total of $2,071. That is based on a tax rate of 60.103 cents, down from 68.061 cents this year with the average assessment last year set at $296,834.
The township experienced a significant increase in property values because of a reassessment last year.
The owner of property assessed at the Lambertville average of $211,515 would pay about 4.5 percent more if the budget is approved by voters. This year’s tax rate was 96.125 cents, and it could be lowered to 84.236 cents. The city’s average assessment in 2002 was $177,256.
South has three candidates vying for the two three-year terms available to represent Lambertville. They are incumbents David Moraski, a pharmacist who owns The Medicine Shoppe in West Amwell; Laurie Weinstein, owner and innkeeper of the York Street House bed and breakfast in Lambertville; and challenger Robert Campbell, a retired State Police lieutenant.
Also vying for the one three-year term to represent West Amwell are Boyd Hartpence, a technology education and industrial arts teacher at Steinert High School in Hamilton Township, and David Beaumont, a program manager for IBM Global Services, Raritan.
West Amwell’s budget of $3,101,375 would raise taxes with a proposed tax rate of 68.88 cents, a drop from last year’s 78.6 cents, but resulting in a tax increase nevertheless because of the sharply higher property values.
The average assessment was $282,270 in 2002. The new assessments of $344,576 means a tax bill of $2,373 for the average homeowner.
Four candidates are vying for the three three-year terms available. Incumbents Chris Kascik, a Hopewell Township policeman, and Cindy Magill, active in the PTO and a seven-year member of the board, face off against Joey Michalchuk, a technical leader at Sarnoff Corp., and Kurt Stiefel, a software integrator for Johnson & Johnson.
The only district with no school board contest is Lambertville where the three incumbents Penny Vaccarino, Steve Williamson and Dorothy Anthes having no opponents for the three, three-year terms available.
The school’s budget could mean the loss of 4.4 teaching positions that could be filled through such things as a maternity leave and by shifting teachers around. The only real cut, according to Superintendent Richard Wiener, is the part-time world languages and Spanish teacher, Consuelo Bernal. She works 40 percent of her time at LPS with the rest of her time spent at South Hunterdon.
The school’s total $2,556,882 tax includes a tax rate of 53 cents. On the average assessment of $211,515, that means $1,121 a year, an increase of about $57 based on this year’s 60 cent tax rate at last year’s average assessment of $177,256.
Voting takes place from 3 to 9 p.m. in Stockton at the firehouse on Mill Street; in West Amwell at the municipal building at 150 Rocktown-Lambertville Road; in Lambertville, the first and second wards (districts) at the YMAC at 60 Wilson St. and the third and fourth wards at the Columbia Fire Company at 177 N. Union St; and in Delaware at the Sergeantsville Fire Company on Route 523.