After two rounds of secret ballot voting on April 2, the West Windsor Township Council selected Diane Ciccone to fill the seat vacated by former Councilman Will Anklowitz, who resigned last month to assume his new position as a Superior Court judge.##M:[more]##
Ciccone was sworn in and took her seat on the dais immediately after being selected, but the council had to vote twice.
Ciccone was first nominated by Councilwoman Linda Geevers, while Councilman George Borek nominated candidate Andrew Hersh. The first vote, however, ended in a 2-1-1 vote, with two votes for Ciccone, one vote for Hersh, and one abstention. Appointment of a candidate requires an affirmative vote by a majority of the eligible council members — which means that three council members must vote in favor of the candidate. In the event of a 2-2 tie, the mayor would have had to cast the deciding vote. The votes were taken by secret ballot, with the clerk reading the results.
Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman also voiced her support for Ciccone during the nomination process. “This is someone who has a commitment to volunteering in the community,” said Kleinman. “It’s apparent in her resume,” which includes her involvement in the schools, in the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, Bikefest, and her service on the Planning Board. Kleinman also noted Ciccone’s commitment to sustainability issues.
Geevers said Ciccone’s experience with land use and planning would be beneficial to the council as it moves forward with the redevelopment process. And, “I think she’ll be an independent thinker on council,” Geevers said. “She doesn’t bring an agenda to council.”
Still, Council President Charles Morgan said that he was “looking to skill sets that will complement the skill sets we don’t already have on council.” Morgan said the council was in need of people who were good with numbers and other financial and business consulting backgrounds. “How can you pass up free advice from Marshall McClennan?” Morgan said, referring to Hersh’s professional background. Hersh currently works for Marsh USA.
Still, the vote came to 2-1-1. Again, the same two candidates were nominated; this time Kleinman nominated Ciccone and Borek again nominated Hersh. However, the vote was 3-0-1.
Ciccone, a West Windsor resident for nine years, has served as a member of the Planning Board since 2006.
She ran for a Township Council seat in the 2007 election. Ciccone is an attorney with a private practice in civil litigation. Her work includes serving on several national arbitration panels, representing several organizations in New York City, including serving as outside counsel to the NYC Transit Authority, and state matrimonial and civil litigation.
Ciccone grew up in upstate New York near the Finger Lakes and attended Colgate University, where her daughter, Kali, is now a student. The family moved to New Jersey as a result of her husband, Daryl McMillan, taking a job with what is now Munich Re America.
Ciccone has worked with Bikefest, is a member of the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, and served volunteer roles with the school district when her daughter was in high school.
Ciccone said she decided to become a candidate for the council seat for some of the same issues that led to her decision to run in 2007, including the environment. “I think that I can bring a good voice to the council,” she said. “Our economy is bad, and our taxes keep going up, and I want to hopefully find solutions,” which could include sharing services with other municipalities, she said. “At the same time, I think we need to increase our services. I want our township to grow in a way that we maintain our quality of life, enrich it, and also have an eye toward the future, so that we grow and don’t become stagnant.”
She said she hopes the township could become a place that “our children want to come back to and live. This is really not attractive to single people.”
Ciccone told the council during her interview that she thinks of the redevelopment plan as a mini Master Plan and that it serves as a blueprint for what the township wants. As a Planning Board member who reviewed the entire plan, she contributed to the more than 100 comments on the plan before it was sent back to council. She said the best thing the council did was include the guiding principles in the document because developers will know exactly what West Windsor wants.
Ciccone said sound planning will ensure that “we are not faced with developers telling us what they want, and not negotiating with them.” She said council must act as “stewards” of the zoning.
Before the vote, Morgan asked the council to consider changing the voting system to a roll call, public vote, as opposed to one done by secret ballot. “We should be accountable for our choice,” he said. “It ought to be a public process.”
Kleinman, however, said the council should hold the secret ballot “out of respect for residents who have put their name in the hat.”
Said Morgan in response: “It’s not respectful to the community or the candidates involved to not hear our vote.”
“Charlie, you were extremely vocal in setting up this system,” Kleinman replied. “It was not a problem when you defined this issue two years ago,” Kleinman said, referring to a debate over the process by which a new council member is selected, which happened as a result of controversy that arose when Barbara Pfeifer was appointed to council.
Councilman George Borek compared the secrete ballot process to a resident’s right to vote on election day in a booth, with the right to remain quiet about the candidate he or she has chosen. And, “there’s no one here who’s hiding anything,” he said. Geevers also agreed, saying she thought the processwas “very open.”
Morgan motioned to change the rules to allow a public vote, but was defeated 3-1.
As the ballots were handed out, Geevers asked the clerk where council members should sign their names. Kleinman argued that writing one’s name on the ballot would negate the idea of it being a secret vote. Geevers motioned to change the rules to have council members sign their names on the ballot, and was supported by Morgan. The vote, however, failed 2-2.
