By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
The various Democratic Party organizations in Princeton are evidently having trouble seeing eye to eye on endorsements for the consolidated Princeton Council.
On Sunday, the Princeton Community Democratic Organization voted to endorse Heather Howard, Bernie Miller, Lance Liverman and Patrick Simon.
On Monday, the Democratic Municipal Committees of Princeton Borough and Township endorsed those four, but added Jenny Crumiller and Jo Butler.
Endorsement is important because endorsed candidates appear in the left column of the voting screen and can use the Democratic slogan[cki: ??logo: ].
Scott Sillars who had seven more votes from the PCDO than Ms. Butler and Tamara Matteo were recommended to appear in the left column by both organizations, but without the Democratic Party slogan.
”I’m extremely disappointed in what happened on Monday night; they are two separate organizations and the committee doesn’t have to take the recommendation of the PCDO and they came out a different way,” said Mr. Sillars on Wednesday. “It’s just another round in the contests.
”I think the PCDO recommendation was a little more valid because of the breadth and depth of the vote from the representation. The newcomer is not going to have an advantage over the incumbent. The incumbent is going to have an advantage in the Democratic organization, and up until the primary none of these selections are binding. The only one that matters is the June primary and the November election.”
Mr. Sillars still intends to run and issued a statement on Thursday morning.
”I am focused on winning in the primary. I was honored at the PCDO endorsement meeting last Sunday where I finished in the top-six for six council seats in my first-ever campaign,” he said. “Unfortunately, the first Democratic vote of the new Princeton was under immediate assault by the dying gasps of old, discredited ways when the Democratic Municipal Committee saw fit to promote the seventh-place finisher above me on the ballot.
”One hundred fifty eight PCDO voters chose me for council, a broad and deep endorsement that was overturned by four votes of the obscure and little-understood Democratic Committee.”
With Ms. Crumiller and Ms. Butler moving up and receiving endorsements by the committee, it shifts the balance to four borough people and two township people. In the PCDO results, there was an even mix of borough and township candidates.
The final two candidates were chosen by a secret ballot on Monday night.
”The committees agreed completely with the recommendations of the PCDO regarding 10 of the 12 candidates,” said PCDO chair Dan Preston in a Tuesday email to the PCDO membership. “The only difference was that the committee upgraded two of the ‘recommended’ council candidates to full endorsement, so as to have a complete set of six endorsed candidates equal to the number of council seats up for election.
”The practical effect is that eight council candidates will be ‘in the column’ in agreement with PCDO’s recommendation, and six (rather than four) will have the official party slogan by their names. Everyone who participated in the PCDO process, including the candidates, should be pleased with this result.”
Mr. Preston provided further explanation in a second email Thursday evening to PCDO members.
”The only thing the committee did differently was to award two of the PCDO’s 40-to-60 percent group its own, independent endorsement and thus a recommendation to also receive the party slogan by their name,” he wrote. “The bottom line is that the PCDO’s own endorsement remains unchanged, and the vote by the membership on Sunday night is the organization’s final word on the subject.”
Borough Republicans see the maneuvering as giving preference to those already in office.
”The PCDO is a club and has no legal standing and it is only legally constituted committees that can endorse to the Democratic county chairman candidates to be placed on the ballot as the Democratic organization candidates,” said Dudley Sipprelle, chair of Princeton Borough Republican Committee. “In the past (PCDO) were the prime mover and in the past the committee gave the endorsement to whomever the PCDO said.
”Generally they have endorsed the results of the PCDO vote and (this year) they have ignored that and they picked for whatever their reason whomever they wanted and that’s the insiders. Each one of the individuals they have endorsed is a current elected official except in one case Patrick Simon and they ignored the other outsiders in the PCDO poll and favored the insiders.”
The borough heaviness probably came as a surprise to some Democrats.
”The borough has taken over the township; they will have a majority if elected to the council in the November,” said Mr. Sipprelle. “The borough will have taken over the municipal government and in practical effect annexed the township.”
Ms. Lempert’s endorsement for mayor by both the PCDO and the committees may provide balance.
”But it’s the council that has the power in the borough form of government,” said Mr. Sipprelle “It’s a weak mayor form of government and the legislative and executive powers lie within the council.”
At the Monday night meeting, 34 committee members were present, 15 borough and 19 township, and the meeting was conducted jointly by the two chairs. Sue Nemeth, vice chair for the Township Municipal Committee, was also present in a non-voting capacity.
The clear direction of the PCDO took some by surprise, as nobody expected clear results with so many candidates, said Mayor Chad Goerner, a member of the committee and PCDO.
”When (the municipal committees) set their course of action, no one anticipated what the PCDO vote would be,” said Ms. Butler. “When they formulated the rules, I think they were anticipating they would need to provide some clarity on the candidates so they set out a procedure for doing that. I think the clarity of the vote was a surprise, they got a much clearer recommendation than they anticipated.”
The committees jointly agreed to rules and heard from the two mayoral candidates and each of the 10 council candidates again on Monday night. After hearing from all the candidates the committee held votes to decide its endorsements.
Some of the committee members had higher stakes as candidates or spouses of candidates than members with no personal affiliations.
”I would have been happy going into this using the PCDO vote,” said Ms. Butler, who finished seventh in that vote, in an interview Wednesday night. “No one listened to me, I lost that. They decided to go ahead and interview the candidates and a different result happened.”
Committee member Ms. Butler, a council candidate, was there for the beginning of the proceedings and took part in the debate at the end about the rules for how the committee was going to handle the ballot position and endorsement position.
”She as a committee person has done the work for it; we have been trying to find non-elected people,” said Peter Wolanin, chair of the Borough Democratic Municipal Committee and a PCDO member.
”She recused herself while the other candidates were talking,” said Mr. Wolanin. “And we did agree that she and anyone else in that position would be allowed to vote.”
Ms. Butler has been on the municipal committee for five years, and there were three spouses in on the discussion as well.
”It was very above board, I twice voted against my own interest, and frankly I withheld comments I could have made because I didn’t want to unduly influence the situation,” she said. “We made the fairest arrangement we thought possible.”
In the end, Ms. Butler said her vote didn’t matter because of the way the votes worked out.
Other committee members include: Jonathan Crumiller, wife of borough council candidate Jenny Crumiller; Margaret Griffin, Scott Sillars’ wife, and Ruth Miller, Bernie Miller’s wife.
”They had very clear horse in the race and we did not ask them to recuse themselves or take any special steps,” said Mr. Wolanin.
In the mayor’s race, Liz Lempert received the full endorsement of the joint municipal committees.
The meeting was just for committee members, no members of the public were present at the Monday meeting. The committee is an elected body. To get on the committee, there are two avenues petition or write in.
Jon Durbin, chair of the Township Democratic Municipal Committee, did not return calls or email requests for comment.
Liz Muoio, chair of the Mercer County Committee, said she will take the municipal committee vote under consideration.
She was not at the meeting
Ms. Muoio said if a person is a committee person, they have the right to vote. Committee people have the right to vote, even if they are on the ballot or somehow related to candidates, she said.
”As long as they have followed procedures and are legally members of the committee, they can vote,” she said. “Anyone can petition to become a committee person. Committee people are accountable to the voters. The PCDO is a club.”
Committee petitions, with a certain number of signatures, are due to the municipal clerk April 2. The people interested in being committee people with valid petitions are then put on the primary ballot to be voted in by the public.

