Will Anklowitz, a West Windsor native with local politics in his bloodline, won a seat on the West Windsor Township Council, defeating the incumbent, Barbara Pfeifer, 3,339 to 2,537, and winning all but one of the township’s 16 districts.
In a surprisingly high turnout for a midterm election, 54.03 percent, or 7,593 of 14,054 registered voters in the township went to the polls, 432 of whom sent in absentee ballots. In the last municipal election, in May, 2005, the turnout was 29 percent, with 4,033 of the township’s 14,020 registered voters casting ballots.
Last November, 52 percent, or 7,294 of the 14,”098 registered voters turned up to vote in an election that included a gubernatorial race.Anklowitz ran on the platform of lower taxes and open government, and said the cornerstone of his campaign was knocking on doors. He reported visiting over 4,”100 houses in the township, speaking with residents to find out directly what they wanted to see in the township. He followed up his home visits with personal letters to residents. He also attributes his win to “sticking to the issues.”
A major issue throughout the campaign was the candidates’ views on the township’s impending redevelopment. Anklowitz has said he does not favor building more housing, but has said he will support the decisions that come out of the “charrette” process, wherein residents will meet with the planners to voice their opinions on what should be included.
Anklowitz was sworn in on Monday, November 13. Pfeifer had held the position since May, when she was chosen by council to replace Kristin Appelget, who resigned to take a job with Princeton University. Anklowitz will serve out the remaining months of Appelget’s term.
Pfeifer says that she won’t run in the upcoming may municipal election, when the seat will again be up for grabs. “I’m surprised,” she says of the loss. “I thought I had my hand on the pulse of the township. Will has a clear message, and he gave that to the people, and they responded. A message was sent.”
“I wasn’t doing this for myself, I was doing it for the township,” she adds. “I don’t think it will cause problems for the transit village to have a different council than the one that voted for Hillier. One thing I know that has happened in this town is that they drag their feet. I would encourage them to not delay decisions until later meetings, but to vote on issues when they are presented.”
Neither candidate did any advertising. Pfeifer’s campaign strategy consisted of debates, campaign signs, mailings, handing out literature at the train station, a letter to the editor campaign, and endorsements from fellow council members Franc Gambatese, Linda Geevers, and Heidi Kleinman.
Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner was Pfeifer’s campaign manager. He managed Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh’s re-election campaign, as well the campaigns for Geevers and Kleinman last May. He also was involved in many campaigns for New York politicians before moving to West Windsor. He did not comment on whether Pfeifer would have had better results with a different campaign strategy. “That would be speculation,” he said.
“I know she went door-to-door in Village Grande,” said Gardner of the one district Pfeifer won. “I don’t know how much she did in other districts. I think Will ran a very hard campaign, and he is to be congratulated. I am looking forward to working with him.”
Pfeifer’s supporters posted numerous messages on the community online bulletin board, wwptoday.com. Pfeifer became a part of the West Windsor political scene through an online initiative executed through her E-mail address, WindsorSpeaks@comcast.net. But the results in this election, at least, suggest that face-to-face campaigning, and in-person communication may still carry more weight than online communications with West Windsor voters.
In any case, when the results filtered into Township Hall election night, they did not look good for the incumbent, who by then was at the home of fellow council member Kleinman, where a post-election party had been planned. When a reporter called to see if he was still welcome, Pfeifer said the party was already breaking up, and that she had called Anklowitz to offer congratulations.
At that same time, over in the Windsor Ponds townhouse of Will Anklowitz, the party was just beginning.
The candidate — now the council member-elect — was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and looked like the suburban parent that makes up a substantial part of the West Windsor electorate. (Anklowitz, an attorney working for the state, and his wife, Madeline, a licensed social worker, have two children, Sam, 6, and Max, 3.
“Barbara called me at around 8:30 to congratulate me,” he told reporters. “And Marvin Gardner, too. I assured him I look forward to working with him.” As if someone might think that remark was more politicking than sincere, Anklowitz added: “I like Marvin actually. If I had had it my way I would have had him on my side.”
If there was any gloating at the Anklowitz victory party, it was hard to find it. The newly minted councilman was generous in various ways — at one point he scrounged through the typical suburban clutter in his garage to find four Double A batteries to bail out a reporter whose digital camera batteries had failed.
When he overheard some of his supporters wondering aloud why the township had not yet released official voting results (implying that the Hsueh administration was somehow playing a final desperate political card), Anklowitz stopped the discussion. “The clerk gets the numbers and then has to follow a set of procedures to verify them. Sharon is correct in not releasing them yet,” he said, referring to clerk Sharon Young and explaining that the numbers he had were provided by his poll watchers, and that Pfeifer no doubt had her own numbers.
Turning back to the reporters, Anklowitz continued, “I just want to thank the voters for this opportunity. I’m humbled.”
And at that point maybe a little tired, too. After a three-month campaign in which he personally knocked on over 4,100 doors in the township, Anklowitz arose at 3:30 a.m. on election day and headed to the train station, where he and his supporters gave out 1,500 copies of the New York Times to commuters. Each one had a “vote for Anklowitz” sticker attached.
He said he checked out various polling stations throughout the day, and at 4:30 p.m. went back to the train station, “to remind commuters that the polls were still open.” The time at the train station was an eye opener: Anklowitz said that aside from Ashley Hutchinson, running for Mercer County freeholder, “I didn’t see any other candidates at the train station.”
Anklowitz’s campaign strategy, said councilman and supporter Charles Morgan, was based on “the Bill Baroni playbook,” referring to the Republican assemblyman representing District 12. “Baroni handed it to Will and Will did every play in the book.”
The approach, said Anklowitz campaign manager Steve Schorr, is one in which “face-to-face” meetings between candidate and voters are critical. “After all the months of door knocking and visiting voters, Will stayed focussed on his issues of open government, open spaces, and lower taxes. And he made clear that this is his community and he really cares.”
While Anklowitz can cite a West Windsor legacy — his father, Len, now a Monroe resident, was owner of the Beverage Barn liquor store on Clarksville Road for many years and also served for 10 years on the zoning board and site plan review advisory board his uncle, Marty Goldman, also served on the zoning board and still serves on the agricultural advisory committee — Schorr represents the new faces in the community. A two and a half year resident of Windsor Haven, he commutes to his Wall Street trading job. During the campaign Schorr spent an average of an hour a night and many more hours each weekend managing the campaign and accompanying the candidate on many of his door-to-door canvasses.
Commenting on the Anklowitz’s connection to the “old” West Windsor, Schorr said, “Will represents all of West Windsor. He wants what’s best for the old and the new.”
As Anklowitz greeted friends, and other candidates who had fared less well in elections involving Hsueh and his team (Alison Miller, David Siegel, and George Borek — the slate on the losing side in the mayor’s 87 percent landslide in May of 2005), he took a call from Lucky Lee, proprietor of the Village Pantry at the corner of Old Trenton and Edinburgh roads.
Lee inadvertently became a campaign factor when Pfeifer, in her role as councilwoman, took reporters on a tour of physical locations in the township that she hoped could be improved. The tour stopped in front of the Village Pantry, where Pfeifer discussed the poor traffic conditions at the intersection. A photograph in the News implied that the abandoned gas pump on his property was the focus of her visit, and Lee complained publicly that customers thought his business was closed.
During the party Anklowitz also got a visit from Mayor Hsueh, who congratulated him and visited with his supporters.
In a subsequent letter to the editor commenting on the election results, Hsueh argued that the results should not be misconstrued as a negative vote on redevelopment and a transit village. Oddly enough, among the Anklowitz supporters filling his living room, kitchen, and spilling out into the front lawn, little mention was made of the transit village.
The talk was more about Anklowitz’s many hometown ties. As a fresh face on the West Windsor political scene, Anklowitz had no political baggage to carry (unlike Pfeifer, whose short term in office as the appointed successor to Kristin Appleget, began with a bitter feud with Morgan over small details in her resume and ended with the remark about “Will’s world” in the final debate that was viewed as patronizing and harsh).
A letter to the editor from Bob Akens of Windsor Drive, received too late for publication before the election, summed up the tone of the victory party: “When you meet Anklowitz you quickly realize he is first and foremost, a nice guy,” wrote Akens. “That may seem like a lightweight comment but when you add his belief that it is usually possible to reach agreements through open discussion of issues, you start to think that Will Anklowitz may be just the person to calm down the wrangling and acrimony that has marred Council all too often over the past months.”
Anklowitz now can work to maintain that image at least through May, when his seat is up for election.
