Morris GOP freeholder race turns snide
Republican primary election campaigns for three seats on the Morris County freeholder board have turned ugly, with name-calling and opposing sides accusing the other of accepting contributions from special interest groups outside the county.
The only candidate who has not entered the fray is Rockaway Borough Councilman Thomas Mulligan, a project manager for Johnson & Johnson who has served on the council’s budget committee and as liaison to the planning and zoning boards.
“I’m the standalone candidate, an independent thinker who will strive to bring cooperation and stability to the freeholder board,” Mulligan said at a recent candidate’s night in Boonton Township.
In 2012, incumbent Freeholders John Cesaro of Parsippany, David Scapicchio of Mount Olive and John Krickus of Washington Township ran as a team and won. For this year’s primary race -- the election is June 2 -- they split and the rift has grown in recent weeks.
Cesaro, the board’s deputy director, is running with Christine Myers of Mendham Township and former East Hanover Councilman Angelo Tedesco under the slogan “Morris First.”
Using the slogan “Morris Conservative Team,” Scapicchio and Krickus have joined with Deborah Smith, a 20-year Denville council member. In all, seven Republicans are vying for the primary nomination for three, three-year seats on the freeholder board. No Democrats have filed, so the winners in June will not face a general election challenge in November, barring any filings by Independent candidates.
This past week, the Scapicchio-Krickus-Smith team lashed out at the Cesaro team, accusing them of being “bankrolled by Democrats and union bosses seeking to take over Morris County government.” They had a campaign consultant sift through contribution reports filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission and then announced the Cesaro team has taken in nearly $70,000 from out-of-county Democrats and “special interest” groups.
Scapicchio pointed in particular to a $24,600 contribution to the Cesaro team by Operating Engineers Local 825 of Springfield. Other large contributors have included Forward Central Jersey of Bayville for $8,400, and Operative Plasterers & Cement Masons International, Local 29 of Jersey City for $4,500.
“The $24,600 contribution -- that’s presidential level. That doesn’t happen in a local election. Something’s fishy,” Scapicchio said.
“Make no mistake, Freeholder Cesaro has sold his soul -- and is clearly willing to sell Morris County government -- to out-of-county Democrats, special interests and big union bosses in a desperate attempt to cling to power and prop up his failing campaign,” Scapicchio said in a mutual team statement.
Cesaro responded by saying the Scapicchio team is the one getting “desperate.” His team responded with a statement calling the Scapicchio group “the phony conservative freeholder team” and said their accusations of accepting contributions from special interest groups is hypocritical.
“Our message resonates well with people and organizations,” Cesaro said. He said he frequently is approached by companies who hope to do business with the county and he directs them to county administration. He said he has been at the forefront of revising an outdated ethics policy for freeholders that would include disclosure of all business interests.
“The ‘conservative’ team has accepted donations from as far away as Austin, Texas, while at the same time taking hefty contributions from a Philadelphia engineering firm and a New York developer,” the Cesaro team said.
Scapicchio, Krickus and Smith have all filed individual reports with ELEC. Cesaro’s team files jointly and Cesaro also files as an individual. In reality, only Smith received a contribution of $75 from a person in Texas. Scapicchio got a $750 contribution from Pennoni Associates, a Philadelphia-based engineering firm, and $500 from an employee of Burton Trent, a public affairs firm in Trenton. Krickus’s contributions include $500 each from Joe Basralian, an investor, and T&M of Middletown.
The Cesaro team bristled when the Scapicchio release referred to Tedesco as “a union bigwig.” Tedesco, a professional firefighter in West Orange, was union president as well as a volunteer firefighter in Roseland for a decade.
At the Boonton Township candidate’s night, Tedesco referred to his term as union president for the firefighters as a period that taught him how to negotiate, particularly when layoffs were expected.
The tone of the debate was civil, with all seven candidates providing biographical details and key points of their campaigns. Cesaro, Krickus and Scapicchio all noted the accomplishment during their first terms of achieving a zero percent increase in the county tax levy three years in a row. But Cesaro distanced himself a bit -- saying economic growth is a necessity for the county and the budget has been “cut to the bone.”
The next major candidates debate will be held Tuesday [ May 19] starting at 7 p.m. at the Masonic Lodge in Morristown.
Cesaro, an attorney and public defender for several municipal courts in Morris County, told the Boonton crowd that he believes his work with the board’s transparency work group is one of his greatest accomplishments. The work includes an online accounting of county expenses “so you can see where your money is going.”
Cesaro cited the county’s agreement to accept juveniles from Union and Hudson counties into Morris’s juvenile detention center as a cash-positive example of shared services. He praised the three-year effort to keep a zero percent tax increase but said better ways to bring more revenue into the county is vital.
“You can cut all you want but without economic growth -- driving that economic engine -- that is the only way you’re going to alleviate the already-overburdened taxpayer’s problem,” Cesaro said.
Tedesco and Myers also pushed for attracting more businesses to Morris County. Myers formerly worked in the telecommunications industry and now owns a specialty food shop and is president of the board of Cornerstone Family Programs.
“I know that the needs and the senior area is growing and I want to make sure that what we’re doing at a county level as far as staffing takes care of the people who need it most,” she said.
As to economic growth, Myers said, “You hear a lot about zero taxes. That’s great. But you can’t cut your way to prosperity. At some point it’s revenue generation, economic growth, bringing business into Morris County and retaining the businesses we have. Through that we’re going to get sustained lower taxes.”
Tedesco, too, called for economic growth and maintaining vital services such as the county’s Morris View Nursing Home, which he said costs taxpayers about $24 each a year to maintain. In response to Scapicchio’s boast of doubling the number of county roads that Morris now resurfaces annually, Tedesco suggested: “They should be paving even more roads.”
Scapicchio -- called “Pavin’ Dave” by some of his colleagues -- said devoting resources to maintaining the county’s infrastructure of roads and bridges is a priority. He stressed that many financial inroads have been made during his term, including eliminating a policy of health benefits for freeholders, reducing county debt by $10 million each of the past three years, and setting a limit of $25 million in bonding each year so that debt payments continue to shrink instead of explode.
“As for no new taxes, we think we can do that for another three years,” Scapicchio said.
Krickus, a certified public accountant who is one of the board’s most fiscally-conservative members and its liaison to County College of Morris and the School of Technology, said he hopes to continue the trend of zero percent tax increases.
“It takes a lot of grunt work,” Krickus said. “We were able to reduce debt by $10 million dollars a year.”
Smith, a councilwoman in Denville for two decades, said she is well-versed in budgeting and known to be a listener. She said she was instrumental in helping to preserve the 420-acre tract in Denville known as Jonathan’s Woods, which prior to 2001 had been targeted for high-density housing.
Smith is retired from Dun & Bradstreet in Parsippany after 25 years there as key accounts manager and she is a National Rifle Association training counselor.
Referring to her team of Krickus and Scapicchio, Smith said “We are the people that want to keep taxes low. I have experience with budgets and I know money can be found within those budgets. I hear others say maybe we’re too close to the bone, maybe we have to increases taxes, but I think looking into a budget there’s things we can do.”
Mulligan said his job at Johnson & Johnson is good training for dealing with complex county problems and he hopes to increase the scope of shared services, such as county collaboration with towns on road resurfacing contracts.
“Everyday I’m coordinating a complex matrix of departments trying to bring new medicines to the market,” Mulligan said.
“It’s great there’s been a zero percent increase in the tax levy, however soon there will be a bill to be paid. We need to make sure all along, essential county services and benefits to our employees are not prematurely cut,” Mulligan said.
Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@GannettNJ.com