MONTGOMERY: GOP pair eke out win in Township Committee race

By Charley Falkenberg, Special Writer
   MONTGOMERY —After a photo finish race, Republicans narrowly have won the two open committee seats by less than 1 percent of the votes.
   The official 2012 election results the county released on Tuesday showed Montgomery voters remained politically divided right up until the last of the absentee and provisional ballots. Leading by only 126 votes, Republican duo Christopher Sugden and incumbent Christine Madrid barely pulled ahead with 50.3 percent of the ballots with Democrats Andrea Bradley and Mark Petraske right behind at 49.6 percent.
   The victory allows the Republicans to rein for a third consecutive year, but Mayor Ed Trzaska wasn’t surprised at the results, which were nearly equally divided.
   ”Montgomery is the quintessential swing town. There is the same amount of Republicans and Democrats in Montgomery, so we are accustom to tight elections,” he said. The mayor congratulated Mr. Sugden and Ms. Madrid and said he was looking forward to working with them in the next year.
   Ms. Madrid emerged as the frontrunner with 4,961 votes, allowing her to make her temporary seat on the committee into a permanent one. She was appointed in January to fill former mayor Mark Caliguire’s vacant seat when he was selected to become a Somerset County freeholder, but now will serve her first full three-year term.
   ”This was a tough competition and although it’s my favorite part, I’m anxious to get down to business,” said Ms. Madrid. With the campaign out of the way, Ms. Madrid expressed eagerness in devoting more time to the committee, her husband, Dan Madrid, and their 7-month-old son, Liam.
   Mr. Sugden trailed behind his running mate by just 16 votes, making him the replacement for Committeeman Mark Conforti, who did not run for reelection. As a newcomer to local politics, Mr. Sugden decided to run for the first time to make a difference in the town he has lived in for 13 years.
   ”If you want to be part of the solution, you have to get involved and step in,” he said. Although new to local politics, Mr. Sugden thought his business and finance skills would be a necessary asset for the committee and its ongoing efforts to do more with less.
   The team agreed that Montgomery’s structural deficit was one of the main challenges that needed to be addressed. Some of their goals going forward include preventing tax increases, bringing in new businesses and looking into sharing more services with neighboring towns.
   Going into the campaign, both Mr. Sugden and Ms. Madrid expected the Democrats to give them a run for their money. Mr. Petraske and Ms. Bradley not only stayed at their heels, but were nearly tied with each other after the mail-in ballots were counted. Mr. Petraske, who was fourth after Election Night, ended up taking third place at 4,891 votes with Ms. Bradley a mere two votes away at 4,889.
   With a neck-and-neck race and more than 1,000 mail-in ballots to consider, the candidates waited an additional three weeks for the dust to settle.
   ”I didn’t expect it to go as long as it did, but Mark and Andrea have been in the community a long time and contribute a lot to the community so it’s not surprising they got the reception they did from the voters,” said Ms. Madrid.
   Ms. Bradley, who is also a member of the Board of Education, said she was very disappointed in the election results. As of Nov. 28, she was in California dealing with a personal matter. When asked if she would consider running again, she said she was currently not in any position to be making decisions. Ms. Bradley’s Board of Education term will expire in April and she will not run for reelection.
   This is Mr. Petraske’s fourth defeat in running for the Township Committee. After attempts to contact him via phone and email, he was unable to be reached for comment in time for the publication of this article. After Election Night, Mr. Petraske had said if he lost, he would not be running again due to the negative impact negative campaigning has had on his family.
   Ms. Madrid and Mr. Sugden will be sworn in when the Township Committee reorganizes in January.