By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer
JACKSON — Members of the group VOTE (Voters Organized To Elect our mayor) have filed a show cause order against Township Clerk Ann Marie Eden and the Township Committee in the civil division of state Superior Court.
The complaint seeks to have the court set aside an ordinance the committee adopted on July 28. That ordinance would ask Jackson voters in November to establish a charter study commission to study alternatives to the town’s present form of government and to elect members to the charter study commission.
VOTE is asking that its question be placed on the ballot instead of the committee’s charter study commission question. VOTE’s question would ask residents to approve a government with a nonpartisan, directly elected mayor and nine Township Council members. The elections would be held in May.
VOTE is also asking the court to determine if its petition that sought to place the question on the ballot was discussed during the committee’s July 28 executive session prior to the adoption of the charter study commission ordinance.
Township Attorney Kevin Starkey has said previously that only one ballot question pertaining to a potential change in government may be placed before the voters in November.
Jackson attorney Dennis Galvin, a former Township Committee member, is the attorney of record representing VOTE. Galvin was a member of the Republican administration that in 1992 used the same charter study question to deflect an attempt by Democrats to organize a similar petition drive for a directly elected mayor.
Democrats currently control the committee by a 4-1 majority.
Judge Frank A. Buczynski Jr. will hear the matter on Aug. 19 in state Superior Court, Toms River.