Windsor-Hights Herald Year in Review

By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer; Vic Monaco, Managing Editor
    Two murder cases, one involving a gruesome find in a Staten Island, N.Y. pond, made big headlines in 2008, So, too, did lawsuits filed against Hightstown and the local repercussions of the national economic downturn.
    But now all the news was bad. Six Samaritans most likely saved the life of an East Windsor police officer when they pulled him from his burning patrol car. And the regional school district got voter approval of its budget, with none of the usual rancor.
    The new year will see the results of two initiatives from 2008: a study to possibly have East Windsor take over police duties in Hightstown and an effort to recall borough Mayor Bob Patten.
    Here’s our annual look at the year just passed:
Man charged
with killing mistress
    Rosario DiGirolamo of Millstone was charged in March with the 2007 murder of his mistress, Amy Giordano, of Hightstown.
    Eight months later, he was at his parents’ Brooklyn, N.Y. home eating Thanksgiving dinner with his family, possibly including the young son he admitted abandoning at the same time he allegedly dismembered the boy’s mother.
    The release of the former Conair employee on Nov. 26 was the result of family members posting his $1 million bail. As a condition of his bail, he is restricted to his parents’ home
    Law enforcement officials said in April that Mr. DiGirolamo killed Ms. Giordano, 27, in June 2007 by hitting her on the head with a tool in her Mercer Street apartment and then dismembered her. Some of her skeletal remains – minus her head, according to published reports — were found in March in a suitcase in a Staten Island, N.Y. pond along with a photo of the couple’s young child, Michael DiGirolamo. That discovery came after a friend of Mr. DiGirolamo’s, John A. Russo Jr. of Staten Island, N.Y., helped lead law enforcement officials there.
    Michael DiGirolamo, then 11 months old, was found abandoned outside a hospital in Newark, Del. According to published reports, he was late adopted by a relative of Mr. DiGirolamo, believed to be his sister. Mr. DiGirolamo, 33 at the time of his arrest, flew to Italy for several weeks before returning to the states to plead guilty to the abandonment, for which he was handed probation.
    Mr. DiGirolamo, who faces 30 years to life in prison for the alleged murder, has pleaded not guilty. His indictment could take place any week now.
Man pleads
to aggravated
manslaughter
    A 73-year-old East Windsor man charged with the murder of his live-in girlfriend pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter after accepting a plea agreement in December.
    Donald Zampini admitted in front of a Mercer County Superior Court Judge in Trenton that he stabbed Barbara Morris 28 times with a household knife in 2006. He said he did so after she refused to give him the television remote control.
    Mr. Zampini was charged with Ms. Morris’s murder Sept. 1 of that year after police responded to a 9-1-1 call he made telling them he had killed his girlfriend and was planning to kill himself.
    East Windsor police said they found Ms. Morris’s body in the early morning hours in the couple’s Wyndmoor Drive home’s living room along with a barely conscious Mr. Zampini, who had ingested sleeping pills in an apparent suicide attempt.
    Per the plea agreement, Mr. Zampini faces 18 years in prison and must serve 15 of those before he is eligible for parole. He has been credited with more than two years time served for the period he was held in the Mercer County Corrections Center in Hopewell and won’t qualify for release until he is 86 years old.
Cop consolidation
study under way
    In August, the governing councils of East Windsor and Hightstown agreed to hire Monmouth Beach-based Patriot Consulting to study the feasibility of the township taking over police coverage in the borough.
    In December, that work was completed but not released as both towns continue to await word on an additional $10,000 in state funding to expand the study to the local court systems.
    Patriot already is being paid $40,583 in state money.
    “They are prepared, as soon as the state approves the grant for the court study, which we all are optimistic about, that they can, within 30 to 60 days, complete the draft reports with respect to both components,” said East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov in early December.
    The two towns have been studying police consolidation since 2006 as a means to reduce skyrocketing police-related costs in the borough, which total $1.6 million.
Economy stalls
several big projects
    The global economic downturn stalled several development projects in East Windsor, two of which could have created up to 700 jobs, and hit Peddie School’s endowment hard, shrinking its value by nearly 23 percent.
    Construction of a Kohl’s department store that was scheduled to open in spring 2008 hasn’t begun. The two-story 105,000-square-foot store would have created more than 200 jobs and been located on Route 33 near the Wal-Mart and Home Depot.
    Township Mayor Janice Mironov has said that discussions between the developer and Kohl’s are “ongoing,” but she declined comment on any specifics.
    Conair, the township’s second largest employer, delayed a warehouse expansion that would have created 200 to 500 new jobs. John Mayorek, Conair’s senior vice-president, blamed the economy for postponing the 450,000-square-foot expansion on a 27-acre lot directly across from the company’s existing warehouse on Milford Road.
    In September, Mr. Mayorek did say that he expects the project to happen eventually without any change to its size and scope.
    Meanwhile, a plan for a 100-home development for people aged 55 and older also is struggling to break ground.
    Enchantment at East Windsor, planned to be built on Wyckoffs Mill Road near the border of Hightstown, was scheduled to begin construction in 2008, but the Township Planning Board granted the project’s developer another extension in July. Red Bank-based Robertson Douglas Group got its first extension in May 2007, and a company representative said he’s hopeful construction will begin in the spring of 2009.
    In Hightstown, Peddie School’s $280 million endowment declined by $63.2 million due to the economy’s bearish turn in the last two quarters of 2008. That prompted the private boarding school to cut short renovations to its 35-year-old athletic center, delay a large expansion of faculty housing, and enact a hiring freeze. The delayed housing plan included a new seven-bedroom home for the head of school.
    In December a school spokesman said it’s too early to predict how long the projects will be postponed.
Mayor recall effort
gets started
    Hightstown resident J.P. Gibbons announced in July his intention to head an effort to recall Mayor Bob Patten, calling the mayor “divisive” and saying his exclusionary tactics have hurt the borough’s economy and image.
    The Republican mayor responded by saying that there is no basis for the effort, while Democratic Councilman Larry Quattrone said he’d like to be considered as a mayoral candidate should the recall question make it to a ballot.
    Mr. Gibbon’s petition was certified Aug. 21 and his committee has 160 days from that date, or until Jan. 28, to obtain the signatures of 25 percent of the number of registered voters in the 2007 general election. That equates to 633 signatures.
    By the end of December, Mr. Gibbons claimed he had collected 537 names, and he said he’d like to complete his task no later than Jan. 20.
    [vmo: easily cut for space: ]Borough Council President Walter Sikorski, a Democrat who challenged the GOP mayor for his position in 2006, has said that no member of the council would be signing the petition. And last week he said he hopes the effort will end.
Borough target
of lawsuits
    The owners of the former rug mill on Bank Street and the former Minute Maid plant site on Mercer Street filed suit against the borough this year over their respective properties.
    West Conshohocken, Pa.-
based Greystone Capital Partners, which owns the former rug mill site, sued in January seeking to overturn the borough’s redevelopment ordinance for the property and to recoup more than $250,000 the company says it spent on the planning process. That process has been going on for more than five years and through many permutations without seeing one shovel hit the ground.
    In December, the developer of the Minute Maid site sued over a borough Planning Board decision that restricts industrial use of the property.
    The Planning Board rezoned the site from industrial to highway-commercial over the summer, which allows large businesses like lumberyards, gas stations and auto repair shops as well as residential uses.
    The developer said the site has a long history of industrial use with the Minute Maid factory, the borough’s top tax generator until it closed down in 2003, having been there for years. A company attorney said the developer had received interest from pharmaceutical and vitamin manufacturers.
    Borough officials said the rezoning was in keeping with the local Master Plan and the desire to limit truck traffic.
    The borough also faced a lawsuit from Meadow Lakes claiming Hightstown has no right to ask it to help finance a water tank that would serve the retirement community and saying the borough was planning to overcharge it for water connection fees.
    The dispute was resolved in June when Meadow Lakes agreed to pay a $325,000 disputed water connection fee in exchange for the borough dropping its $627,417 bill for the proposed tank.
Officer pulled
from burning car
    Seconds before East Windsor Police Officer Paul Wille’s wrecked patrol car burst into flames, six people pulled him out through a window, likely saving the newly married 27-year-old’s life.
    Officer Wille had crashed his car into a utility pole and tree on Old York Road while responding to a call of an officer in need of assistance on Cedarville Road at 7:20 p.m. Oct. 21.
    With the doors of the car wedged shut by the impact, and the right front tire beginning to catch fire, it was lucky for the three-year veteran of the force that the six people noticed his plight and worked frantically to free him from what could have become a lethal inferno.
    The six: Kyle Cornelius, of Old York Road; Kelly Davis, of Monmouth Junction; Mattieu Dutriax, township address unlisted; Jeffery Lang, of Allentown; Terrance Nish, of South Brunswick; and Sandra Scott, of South Brunswick, were all humble in the role they played in breaking the car’s window, cutting Officer Wille loose from his seat belt and pulling him out of the vehicle before it was engulfed in flames.
    Grateful township officials and the officer’s family recognized and honored the six at a ceremony in the East Windsor municipal building one month later.
    Officer Wille suffered a fractured neck, gashes to his head and elbow, and a bruised right knee.
    Police Chief William Spain later said excessive speed had caused Officer Wille’s accident. He also pointed out officers are permitted to exceed the speed limit in emergency situations.
Two new faces
on Borough Council
    Last year’s Hightstown Borough Council election gave the borough two freshman council members and brought a Republican to the body for the first time in four years.
    Democrat Isabel McGinty and Republican Mike Theokas were the top two vote-getters in November’s general election.
    Ms. McGinty, a criminal attorney, came in first by a wide margin with 1,199 votes. Mr. Theokas, the former owner of Theo’s Lakeside Tavern, won his seat with 936 votes.
    He’ll be the first Republican to sit on the council since Ron Sackowitz and Nancy Walker-
Laudenberger did in 2005. The borough has a Republican mayor, Bob Patten, but he does not vote unless the six-person council is tied.
    Both Ms. McGinty and Mr. Theokas already are laying their fingerprints on local government — by getting involved in a local fray.
    Mr. Theokas was appointed to a controversial three-man budget committee along with Councilmen Jeff Bond and Larry Quattrone that will discuss some fiscal issues privately, including possible job cuts for next year. Their private meetings have been vigorously opposed by at least one councilman, Dave Schneider.
    Ms. McGinty asked to be invited to the committee’s meetings, but her requests were ignored. She soon after called on the mayor to form several committees of residents to study the budget instead of the council committee. Mr. Theokas said insinuations the budget is being put together behind closed doors were “insulting.”
    As for the election itself, Democrat Janice Mastriano and Republican Ashley Hutchinson were the two unsuccessful candidates. Ms. Mastriano, a former school board member and a self-
described “conservative Christian Democrat,” had those in her own party turn against her over public comments she made in 2000 linking gays and pedophilia.
    That outraged some residents and caused Democratic club President Chris Moraitis to support an unsuccessful 11th-hour write-candidate in the primary.
    Ms. Mastriano came in third with 842 votes.
    Ms. Hutchinson, the chairwoman of the local Republican committee, came in last with 755 votes.
Taxes, fees
continue to climb
    In the face of declining wages and a contracting economy, taxes and fees continued to go up everywhere you looked in the area this year.
    If you’re one of the 5,000 or so people living in Hightstown, you received a 15-cent municipal tax hike — the third double-
digit increase in a row. That hike would have been 24 cents if not for a last-minute extraordinary aid grant of $200,000 from the state.
    That brings the local tax bill in the borough to $1.59 per every $100 of assessed home valuation. [vmo: easily cut for space: ]For the average homeowner with an assessed value of $120,000, that’s a municipal tax bill of $1,908, up $180 from 2007.
    In East Windsor, the approximately 25,000 residents got a 5.7-cent municipal tax hike, nearly double the increase in 2007, bringing local taxes to about 58 cents per every $100 of assessed home valuation. [vmo: easily cut for space: ]For a home assessed at the township average of $132,500, that’s a municipal bill of $754, up $77 from 2007.
    For the 15,000 township residents who get a trash collection bill, that price went up, too. The average trash bill in 2008 rose $13 to $278.
    The 10,000 people who live in the planned unit development of Twin Rivers don’t pay township trash collection fees, but they did see their association fees rise. Fees for homeowners in the East Windsor community went up from 25 cents for the smallest units to $6.05 for the largest.
    School tax rates went up too.
    Taxes for the East Windsor Regional School District, which serves both the township and Hightstown, increased 23 cents in the borough, and 1 cent in the township. [vmo: easily cut for space: ]That’s a $276 increase to $4,248 in annual school taxes for average borough homeowners. Average homeowners in the township saw their school taxes rise $13.25 to $4,319.
School district budget OK’d by voters
    For the second year in a row, area voters approved the budget for the East Windsor Regional School District. And this time around, the $80 million fiscal plan was approved without any controversy.
    Voters OK’d the budget in April by a margin of about 55 percent. It carried a 23-cent tax increase in Hightstown and a 1-cent increase in East Windsor.
    When the tally was broken down by municipality, voters in Hightstown opposed the budget by nearly 61 percent.
    While the budget does represent an increase of about $3 million from the year before, it eliminated 18 staff positions while adding nine teaching positions. The new positions accommodated new schedules at the Melvin H. Kreps Middle School and Hightstown High that lengthened class periods.
    And on the horizon is roof repair in all but one of the district’s schools that the district Business Administrator Kurt Stumbaugh said could cost about $8 million. Mr. Stumbaugh said he’s confident the state will cover about 40 percent of that cost. If they don’t, the district would have to hold a referendum on the issue, something Superintendent Ron Bolandi said he hopes to avoid.
    In 2007, voters had approved the budget, but rejected two additional questions — one for all-
day kindergarten and the other to restore 13 teaching positions from 50 reduced staff slots. Those questions, by state law, went to the two municipal councils. Hightstown narrowly approved the questions, while East Windsor rejected them, resulting in the downfall of both district requests.
    The two years before that, voters rejected the district’s budgets.
Hate graffiti
a yearlong issue
    Vandals hit the area with hateful graffiti a number of times this year with one incident prompting scores of residents to hold a peaceful protest to condemn its content.
    In January, police found a 1-square-foot swastika spray-
painted on Hightstown’s memorial fountain erected at The Point — where Main, South Main and Mercer streets meet.
    That same morning, state police found hateful graffiti scrawled on the memorial statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, two streets signs and the post office in nearby Roosevelt as well as another swastika on a street sign on Etra Road near Milford Road in East Windsor.
    Days later, three college students from East Windsor — Nikolai Afanassenkov, Max Drazdik and Nicholas Kurahara — were charged with bias intimidation and bias-based criminal mischief. The three turned themselves in after police informed them of the charges, and now they each face five years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines each, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
    About 100 outraged residents held a candlelight vigil at The Point, also attended by mayors Bob Patten, of Hightstown, and Janice Mironov, of East Windsor, to protest the graffiti.
    Later in the year, police reported anti-Semitic and anti-
American markings on concrete barriers on Route 133 in East Windsor along with anti-Semitic and anti-black graffiti to a building.
    And in September, area schools were struck with similar messages days before the school year began.
    Officials at the Walter C. Black Elementary School said they found a swastika and the words “U.S. Sucks” on the back wall of the school building.
    Police said someone wrote, “Al Qaeda Lives” with marker in Hightstown High School’s gymnasium while “KKK,” “White Power” and a swastika was found in the hallway and stairwell.