Committee to reconvene after Nov. 6
By: Lea Kahn
The Clean Elections Committee, which has been meeting monthly since May, told Township Council it is suspending its meetings until after the Nov. 6 general election because it believes the issue has become politicized.
The committee, created by Township Council earlier this year, is studying whether Township Council candidate campaign expenses should be picked up by taxpayers instead of privately raised campaign contributions.
The committee would make a recommendation to Township Council after studying the issue. If the committee recommends creating a "clean elections" ordinance, Township Council would put a referendum question on the November 2008 general election ballot for voter approval.
At Township Council’s Aug. 21 meeting, committee co-chairman Doris Weisberg said the group did not want the issue of public financing to become a campaign issue in the Township Council race. The group wanted to operate in an "academic mode" and study the issue, she said.
"Sadly, our request has been ignored," said Ms. Weisberg, who is a Democrat and a former Township Council member. She is representing the Lawrence League of Women Voters on the Clean Elections Committee.
"We come here tonight to say we have found it impossible to work in a true academic manner as a study group and announce we are suspending our meetings until after the November general election. This was a unanimous decision by the committee," she said.
After the meeting, Ms. Weisberg pointed to letters to the editor that have appeared in The Lawrence Ledger and The Times, as well as a piece that appeared in the Campaign Corner feature in The Ledger all of which she claimed had politicized the issue.
Three letters to the editor printed in The Ledger between November 2006 and March 2007 made it clear that the Lawrence Township Republican Club and the Lawrence Township Republican Party are opposed to using taxpayers’ dollars to fund Township Council elections. The letters suggested an alternative approach.
In those letters, Lawrence Township Republican Club President David Snedeker and Lawrence Township Republican Municipal Chairman Scott Bentivegna wrote that Township Council candidates should disclose all political campaign contributions within 48 hours of receipt on the Internet, regardless of the dollar amount. State law calls for reporting the names and addresses of all donors who contribute $300 or more to a candidate’s campaign.
A fourth letter written by Mr. Bentivegna, published in The Times earlier this month, said that "Democrats have formed a committee to develop a scheme for funding council campaigns using property tax revenue." He repeated the Republicans’ call for disclosure of all campaign contributions within 48 hours.
In the Campaign Corner piece which appeared in the Aug. 9 issue of The Ledger, Republican Party candidates Bob Bostock, Falk Engel and Marie Tagliaferri repeated their opposition to using taxpayer dollars to fund a Township Council election.
After the Township Council meeting, Clean Elections Committee member George Ford said committee members want to focus on the issue at hand at the meetings and be objective. They don’t want to worry about the campaign or be concerned about what the candidates are saying about the committee, said Mr. Ford, who is a registered Republican.
Committee member Jim Cleak, who also is a registered Republican and who attended the Aug. 21 meeting, said that postponing the meetings until after the November general election is a means of avoiding having the group become part of the Township Council campaign.
The proposal to use taxpayer dollars to fund municipal elections was suggested as the next step in campaign finance reform. Since 2004, Township Council has adopted two ordinances aimed at reining in the practice of "pay-to-play," in which professionals contribute money to a candidate’s campaign in return for no-bid contracts.
State law allows governing bodies to award professional service contracts to attorneys, architects, engineers and planners without first seeking competitive bids. The pay-to-play ordinances limit the amount of money a professional can donate to a candidate’s campaign and still be in the running for a no-bid contract.

