BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
Eatontown EATONTOWN –– Thirteen turned out to be a lucky number for write-in Borough Council candidate Joseph Questore.
Undaunted even after he lost election to a full-term on the Eatontown Board of Education in April, Questore is returning to the campaign trail to vie for a one-year unexpired term on the six-member council against the son of a fellow school board member.
Having garnered 13 write-in votes as the result of a successful write-in campaign staged by the Eatontown Democratic Party during the June 7 primary election, Questore has cleared the first hurdle to attaining the council seat now occupied by incumbent Republican Roy J. Eisen.
Come November, Questore, who sat on the school board from September until his defeat this spring, will face Republican Anthony “Bubba” Gaetano, a previously unsuccessful council candidate and the son of sitting school board member Joseph Gaetano.
The younger Gaetano is also employed by the Eatontown school board as a social studies teacher at Memorial School.
Even though he had not initially filed a petition to compete in the primary election, several members of the local Democratic organization sought out Questore to take part in an informal, grassroots write-in campaign.
“There were no [campaign] buttons,” Questore explained. “The local Democratic party just asked if I would run.”
The write-in votes, all 13 of them, have boosted Questore’s ambition.
“How can you deny the will of the people?” Questore asked rhetorically.
Up until the time the primary election votes were tallied, Gaetano had been the sole candidate for the one-year, unexpired term.
The Monmouth County Board of Elections protocol requires that anyone seeking to run in a primary election in June must file a petition with the valid signatures of six registered voters by a set deadline in April in order to be placed on the ballot.
However, if a candidate who does file a petition attains at least six valid write-in votes, that candidate becomes eligible to run in November’s general election, explained Eatontown Borough Clerk Karen Siano.
Although he has not yet organized a formal campaign with staffers and promotional materials, Questore indicated that “things will heat up by the end of the summer.”
As a candidate, Questore expects to campaign for stable municipal taxes and more open space purchases in the borough.
“Eatontown is a nice town,” he said. “I’d like to work with the mayor and council to keep taxes down and improve programs in town.”
Questore, who was appointed to the school board last fall to fill the unexpired term of Charles H. “Skip” Fischer, also endorses the formation of a constitutional convention on property tax reform at the state level.
In addition, Questore favors the proposed revitalization of the borough’s Main Street district, which is presently in its early stages of planning.
If elected, Questore pledged to join other borough officials in their battle to prevent Fort Monmouth from shutting down under the Pentagon’s Base Closing and Realignment (BRAC) process.
A Grant Avenue resident, Questore is a director at the Bloomfield office of ThruPoint, a technology consulting company headquartered in New York City.
Meanwhile, Eisen, who was appointed to the council in October after former Councilman Charles Riddle resigned to move out of town, is now attempting to win a full, three-year term as is his Republican running mate, current Councilman William M. Kinney.
In last week’s primary, Kinney and Eisen, running unopposed for the GOP nomination, garnered 322 and 309 votes respectively.
Likewise, Kinney was appointed by the council in April to take over for former councilman and retired music teacher John J. Collins, who stepped down in the wake of sexual abuse charges against two minor females who were once his students at Memorial School.
Collins’ former seat, is one of two three-year terms on the council that is up for grabs this year.
On the Democratic side, incumbent Democratic Councilwoman Geraldine Hopkins and running mate Carleton ”Carl” Sohl, ran unopposed in the primary. Hopkins pulled in 178 votes and Sohl came in with 174 votes.
Hopkins and Sohl will now oppose Kinney and Eisen in November’s contest.
Presently, the council is controlled 4-2 by the Democrats. Mayor Gerald Tarantolo is also a Democrat.