By Steve Morris

Often times elections fail to live up to the hype but this year’s May municipal elections certainly did.  2008 seems to be the year of upsets, surprises, and controversy; these elections followed that trend to a “T”.   

RIDGEFIELDPARK

Ridgefield Park looked like it would be a sleepy, quiet election that would see the incumbents re-elected with ease.  Well, it was.  Challengers Frank Scerbo and Junior Hernandez were trounced by a nearly two to one ratio by the incumbent laden slate of Fosdick, Boyd, Anlian, Poli newcomer Adam McNeil. 

MAHWAH

Mayor Dick Martel may have been convicted of driving drunk back in 2005, but the denizens of Mahwah seem to have forgiven him.  Martel defeated ex-councilman Gary Paton by nearly 1,000 votes in what amounted to a landslide victory.  Martell’s superior campaign organization, financing, and incumbent status amounted to a knock out blow for Paton’s mayoral hopes. 

Challengers in the council race were more competitive.  The middle three vote getters, Roth, Alderisio, and Kelly were only separated by a margin of 84 votes.  It appears councilman Alan Kidd, who endorsed the losing slate, will continue to be a lonely soul on the township council. 

RIDGEWOOD

Ridgewoodians voted for “change” on Super Tuesday when the town went for Obama and they voted for “change” this in this year’s municipal election, dumping both of the incumbent candidates.

The landslide victory for the challengers suggests that Ridgewood residents aren’t all that keen on building a parking garage in the village business district, or on letting the Valley Hospital run wild with their expansion plans either. 

Interestingly enough, this marks the second time Jacques Harlow has failed to win re-election to the village council; Harlow was elected in 1996, defeated in 2000, elected in 2004, and now faces defeat once more. 

GARFIELD

Community activist Tana Raymond has been a fixture at city council meetings for years, keeping a weary eye on Garfield’s elected officials.  Now it appears she’ll be an elected official, after squeaking by incumbent councilman James Krone by a margin of 28 votes. 

The team of incumbents Calandriello, Aloia, Moskal, Delaney and Krone crushed their opponents in the fund raising game, raising well over $100,000 in what tuned out to be the most expensive non-partisan race in the county.  Their efforts paid off, with four out of the five returning to the council, and as stated earlier, they were only 29 votes away from a sweep.

Richard Derrig was another big surprise, garnering only about 200 fewer votes than the team of Vistocky, Bonanno, and DeMarco.  Despite having next to no financial support and having never held elected office, he almost achieved parity with Vistocky and DeMarco, members of Garfield’s school board.

TEANECK

Teaneck’s 2008 non-partisan contest has been controversial to say the least.  Teaneck United and Team Teaneck took shot after shot, after shot at one another through out the campaign and it appears that Team Teaneck won a split decision by maintaining control with the victory of Mohammed Hameeduddin.

Toffler cleaned house, leading the next highest candidate by 375 votes. Monica Honis’s victory was less decisive, as she only beat the worst performing member of Team Teaneck, Robert Robinson, by 139 votes.  Mohammed Hameeduddin was the only member of Team Teaneck to get on the council, but his running mates were right behind him, only trailing by 28 and 39 votes respectively.  Audra Jackson finished a distant sixth, rounding out Teaneck United. Teaneck United needed to win all three seats to win control of the Council.

Independents Ned Goldman and Howard Rose were unable to capitalize on public discord with all of the nasty campaigning going on between the two juggernauts and finished last, with Goldman ahead of Rose. 

What does all of this mean for the future of Teaneck politics? 

After all of the negative mail pieces, the hysteria filled meetings, heated candidate forums, and the infamous “Gas Chamber” remark neither side really blew the other out of the water. 

“Unity” may be a popular buzzword thrown around Teaneck these days, but it appears to be just another empty buzzword.  Team Teaneck did well in the North West, a heavily Orthodox area while the North East and South were dominated by Teaneck United, both areas with high concentrations of African-Americans.  Neither side really managed to build any kind of unified coalition amongst Teaneck’s diverse ethnic groups, instead relying heavily on high turnout numbers from their bases.      

With no decisive victor, it appears Teaneck will continue to go on as Joe and Loretta’s ”WWI western front” for the foreseeable future, with the political equivalent of the Battle of the Somme taking place each May.