ROBBINSVILLE: Township Council race expands to five candidates

By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
   ROBBINSVILLE — Two township residents filed nomination petitions just hours before Monday’s deadline, putting them in a five-way race for the three open Township Council seats in the May 10 nonpartisan municipal election.
   Planning Board member Ron Witt, 43, of Honeysuckle Drive, is making his first bid for elected office and running under the banner “Independent Leadership for Balanced Growth.” Newcomer Joe Schiavino, 46, of Isa Court, is using a slogan that courts voter dissatisfaction with a simple question: “Had Enough?”
   The three incumbents, Township Council members David Boyne, Christine Ciaccio and Rich Levesque, are seeking re-election to four-year terms. The slate, running under the banner “Moving Robbinsville Forward,” previously filed their nominating petitions with the municipal clerk on Feb. 28.
   Under Robbinsville’s nonpartisan form of government, there are no Democratic or Republican primaries to elect each political party’s standard-bearer for municipal office. Instead, residents who want to run for public office need to collect the signatures of at least 1 percent of the township’s registered voters (85) in order to have their names placed on the ballot.
   Mr. Schiavino, a spacecraft systems engineer, said the process of walking neighborhoods, talking to voters and gathering signatures for his petition helped him see that there are a “good amount of people who are not happy with the way things are going.”
   ”There’s a bit of discontent out there,” Mr. Schiavino said. “So I think it may be time for me to step up and do something instead of just complaining.”
   Mr. Schiavino, who often attends Township Council meetings, said he believes the council hasn’t been as independent as it should be from the mayor, especially when it comes to crafting the municipal budget.
   ”It’s an election year, so we won’t be seeing a tax increase this year, but we did have a 29 percent tax increase last year that people have not forgotten about,” Mr. Schiavino said.
   Mr. Schiavino also was critical of the council for not taking advantage of a new state law that allows municipalities with nonpartisan governments like Robbinsville to save money by moving their May elections to November when other races for federal, state and county offices are held. The election date change would have saved Robbinsville $28,000 and improved voter turnout, according to proponents of the proposal.
   ”It seems like such a simple thing to do to save money, but they wouldn’t do it,” Mr. Schiavino said, referring to the Nov. 11 Township Council meeting when the proposed ordinance was listed for introduction, debated, but not acted upon.
   Most of the council opposed the move at the time, saying it could open the nonpartisan municipal election up to outside political interference.
   Mr. Witt, the executive vice president of a Cranbury-based construction management company and general contracting firm, is a former member of the Robbinsville Economic Development Advisory Committee and the Zoning Board of Adjustment. He currently serves on the Robbinsville Planning Board.
   A married father of three Pond Road Middle School students, Mr. Witt said he also has been involved in township youth sports teams and has coached Little League, soccer and basketball.
   Mr. Witt said he was running for municipal office because he wants to give a voice to the concerns of ordinary citizens. He declined to criticize any of the positions that the council has taken, saying only that he wanted to bring a “new perspective” to municipal government.
   An issue that Mr. Witt intends to highlight in his campaign is the need for a more streamlined development process to get commercial projects completed faster so that they can generate tax dollars sooner. He said that smart growth, which balances the need to preserve open space with initiatives to increase commercial ratables, is the key to controlling property taxes.
   Mr. Boyne, of Barto Way, has served on the Township Council since 2005. He is the CFO of a national transportation company and has three decades’ experience as an auditor, accountant and senior financial adviser.
   Ms. Ciaccio, the owner of Tony’s Farm and Garden Center, has been a member of Township Council since 2007. A resident of the Windsor section of Robbinsville, Ms. Ciaccio founded the Washington Township Business Association and served on the zoning board for 14 years and before being elected to council.
   Mr. Levesque, a Trenton lobbyist, has served on the Township Council since 2008 and also is the chairman of the Republican Municipal Committee. Mr. Levesque lives on Garden Place in Town Center.
   The deadline for registering to vote in the municipal election is April 16. The three top vote-getters in the May 10 election will be sworn in to office when the Township Council reorganizes July 1.