Both Plainsboro and West Windsor will have contested elections on Tuesday, November 3, when polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
In West Windsor (see debate, page 13), Diane Ciccone and Andrew Hersh are vying for election to fill the remainder of the term of Will Anklowitz, who resigned in March. The term expires on June 30, 2011.
In Plainsboro, three candidates are seeking election to two open seats on Plainsboro Township committee, with Republican challenger Paul O’Brien running against incumbent Democrats Neil Lewis and Nuran Nabi.
Ciccone, a West Windsor resident since August, 2000, has been serving on the council since April, when she was chosen as Anklowitz’s replacement until the election. She began serving as a member of the Planning Board in 2006, where she continues to serve as the council’s representative.
Ciccone, an attorney with a private practice in civil litigation, ran for a Township Council seat in the 2007 election. Her work as an attorney includes serving on several national arbitration panels, representing several organizations in New York City, including service as outside counsel to the NYC Transit Authority, and state matrimonial and civil litigation. Ciccone and her husband, Daryl McMillan, moved to New Jersey after he took a job with what is now Munich Re America. Prior to moving to West Windsor, she lived in East Windsor for 11 years.
Three members of council — George Borek, Linda Geevers, and Kamal Khanna — have endorsed Ciccone.
Hersh, who has lived in the township for four years, is a vice president with Marsh USA, based in New York. Hersh, who grew up in Rockville, Maryland, has a bachelor’s degree in logistics from Penn State University. His background is in supply-chain management, shared services, cost reduction, and risk management. When he came to Marsh, he helped companies and entities run safer business by identifying risks and mitigating them. He led risk consulting in the Northeast and very recently began working with client relationships with Fortune 500 companies.
Hersh moved to West Windsor in 2005 for his job. At the time, he held regional responsibilities for the consulting division at Marsh, and had been familiar with the area after having previously worked at Johnson & Johnson. He said he felt it would good place to raise his three-year-old son, Benjamin, who attends pre-school in the district.
Hersh is also a member of the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, Congregation Beth Chaim, Friends of West Windsor Open Space, and is a contributor to the Red Cross and the West Windsor Arts Council.
In Plainsboro, the election has been relatively non-contentious, with incumbents Lewis and Nabi boasting of their accomplishments in office and Plainsboro’s success under the Democrats.
O’Brien, meanwhile, is attempting to break the 5-0 lock that the Plainsboro Democrats have held on the township committee since the early 1990s. His campaign has focused on fostering a business-friendly environment and continuing growth among Plainsboro’s proprietors as part of a “Think Plainboro First” attitude.
Lewis, of Bradford Lane, is a 26-year township resident and a vice president at Xenobiotic Labs in Plainsboro. He was elected to the Township Committee in 1995 and has been deputy mayor since 1998.
Lewis, who was born in New York, earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the City University of New York and then earned his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Kansas. While doing post-doctoral work in drug metabolism at Ohio State, Lewis became an assistant professor in the chemistry department from 1972 to 1982.
Lewis moved back to the east to take a job in the drug development program for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He and his wife, Nancy, moved to Plainsboro in 1983. Their two children are graduates of the WW-P school district.
Nabi, a resident of Kinglet Drive South, was appointed by the Township Committee in November, 2007, to fill the committee seat vacated by Ginger Gold Schnitzer. He was re-elected to fill the remainder of the term, which expires on December 31. He has served on the Planning Board (two years) and then the Human Relations Council (three years), and is also a member of the Plainsboro Free Public Library foundation.
He and his wife, Zeenat, have been living in Plainsboro since 1994 and have two sons, both of whom graduated from the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district. Prior to moving to Plainsboro, Nabi lived in New York City for four years, New Brunswick for 10 years, then in North Brunswick from 1984 to 1994.
Currently he is serving as senior vice president and board member of Applied Resource & Photonics Inc., of Harrisburg, PA. A retired research scientist, Nabi worked 22 years for Colgate Palmolive Co. and retired as an associate director of technology. He was the inventor of the Colgate Total toothpaste technology and has more than 100 patents and publications to his credit.
O’Brien, the owner of the Plainsboro-based Golden Rule Real Estate, has been a resident of the township for 14 years. He is also the founder of the Plainsboro Business Partnership (which is holding a meeting on Tuesday, October 27, at 8 a.m. at Salt Creek Grill).
He grew up in New Milford, and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pace University and a master’s in public administration from Kean University.
At the time he moved to Plainsboro, he was working for a brain injury rehabilitation center in North Brunswick, and he wanted to shorten his commute. He and his wife, Denise, who have a 14-month-old daughter, Bridget, found Plainsboro to be more affordable than Bergen County.
