The BOE Blueprint: A Path Forward for Accountability in a One-Party System | Community Voices

Don’t worry this has a good ending (sort of).

Given Poage’s record on Council and Bradford’s record on the BOE, a fair question to ask is “How in the world did they win?” In our endorsement and throughout the year, we’ve put out one article after another connected to facts that, if elections were decided on facts alone, would have led to a very different outcome. Their election victories weren’t a vindication of their record as much as they were a vindication of well funded campaigning on top of a backlash to the current Presidential administration.

Be clear, this isn’t about party politics for us. Both party establishments have a track record of marginalizing independent coverage.

The Systemic Factors in Play:

Ciattarelli wasn’t the worst candidate ever, but his recent affection for the President’s policies was a really bad move that many Trump supporters initially didn’t buy and that turned off many Republicans who disagreed with the President. It wasn’t just bad – it was unnecessary; he would have easily beaten Spadea and Bramnick in the primaries simply by pointing out how close he came the last election and his more sensible policies on school choice and tax relief. He not only shot himself in the foot but took down some decent incumbents with him, like Matsikoudis. People went into the voting booth all out tribal, consequences be damned.

Then there are the benefits of incumbency. The multitude of public-facing committees breeding internal loyalty and external photo exposure on official township and District pages Poage and Bradford received had an impact. For every one article published on their actual records, there were two or three Instagram posts of either the Mayor and/or Poage and Bradford on the Mayor’s page, the Township pages,, DIstrict pages and the party machine’s pages on top of the paid advertising and front page publication of unattributed township articles on for profit platforms.

Another reason connects to the fact that the community Facebook forums are run by individuals who are party adherents that simply delete any article critical of local representatives. NJ21st posts are removed within hours or simply prevented from being posted by default. One of those forums is run by an individual who ran for New Providence Town Council several times and recently threw her hat into the BOE race. Actually, all three admins ran for office. This isn’t new; it was the same manner of censorship that occurred when Republicans were firmly in control in Berkeley Heights. In fact the local Democrats should thank the local Republicans for the machinery and blueprint they put in place. Well… they have, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Opposition party complicity is the remaining factor. We weren’t planning to endorse anyone for Town Council this year; we really have little faith in any candidate coming out of either machine. Yet when the Republican ticket decided to reach out to us in the final week leading up to the campaign, we discovered they were rather independent and aligned well with our platform of evidence based decision making, accountability, and transparency. We also discovered they were told not to use our platform to connect with voters. All the while, the people who ran their social media pages were invisible (seriously, check out their Facebook page), and their ground game consisted of just them and one or two volunteers outside of the RMC. Do you want to know how to get a fake turf field when the opposing party is in power? Don’t support the candidates running on your ticket. Take a peek at who exactly serves on the Recreation Committee.

The Path Forward:

So what’s the path forward? I think the BOE race offers a pretty good example. Despite Bradford being installed as president two years in a row by the County Superintendent (guess who he’s best buds with?) and our District’s and Township’s incessant posting of her image everywhere, along with Terrero’s adoption of the Penna approach of consolidating PTO power as a catalyst for a BOE seat and paid advertising, they could not carry Moore, and one independent candidate was able to secure a seat while the other stayed close. This is the third year in a row that independent candidates were able to maintain half the seats on the BOE. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment.

When you consider Dr. Foregger, another independent candidate who ran against a slate that included the Mayors husband last year was magnitudes ahead of the rest of the field in votes, this picture becomes brighter.

In any case, as a result of this election Residents are now faced with a one-party Council, or rather, a one-party council going under two labels, and the track record of the past few years has been disastrous.

There’s another election next year. Republicans and Democrats who want better need to consider stepping up and getting involved in the primary to take over seats.

Independents can also to step up and offer residents a third choice.

There is a path forward the question is whether anyone will take it.

Submitted directly by the author; content reflects their own views