Ending what had been a tumultuous campaign season in West Windsor, Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh won his bid for re-election to a third term with 72 percent of the vote over Council President Charles Morgan, while Linda Geevers, who garnered the most votes of any candidate, was re-elected to her seat on council.##M:[more]##
Kamal Khanna, their running mate, was elected to his first term on council during the elections on Tuesday, May 12.
The slate claimed victory in each of the township’s 16 voting districts. In the mayoral race, Hsueh received a total of 3,”572 votes; Morgan received 1,”306; and Pete Weale received 175 votes.
Immediately after the election, Hsueh urged both the council and mayor to work together. Said Hsueh: “I will try my best” to work with Morgan. “I will have to work with all of the council members. He’s only one of five. But I want the council members to understand that we have to work together.”
Morgan said he and his running mates “did our best to take the high road and articulate the issues we thought were most important to the community without attacking the other side.”
On the day following the election, Morgan vowed to continue pushing state officials to investigate the alleged “dirty politics” Hsueh used during his campaign — even saying that he might bring the matter to the Local Finance Board, alleging that Township CFO Joanne Louth has violated the ethics code.
A week before the election, Morgan had filed a request with the Mercer County Prosecutor and the state Attorney General’s office for the investigation. Morgan found issue with the analysis by Marion and Louth of his proposal to reduce the tax rate by 12.1 percent (The News, May 1), which he alleges was biased in that it was prepared for political purposes. He also alleged that the document attempted to defeat the political arguments he has made in his campaign. “The fact that the mayor’s staff is preparing a response to my policy initiative to lower taxes in a campaign is evidence in and of itself that the mayor’s staff was preparing a political document,” Morgan wrote (see Letters, page 3).
“When you see the law being broken, you have to do something, you have to act,” he said.
Weale, meanwhile, said he expected to have received more votes. “However, I feel the absence of actively campaigning hurt me and also my lack of following up with the folks with the commuter vote at the train station,” he said. “It was basically a virtual campaign, and that, I think, is unique.”
He pointed to a campaign tactic by someone in the mayor’s camp who posted a video on Youtube.com containing clips from televised public meetings during last year’s budget season when Morgan and three other council members advocated increasing council members’ — and the mayors’ — salaries. “I can’t think that helped Charlie’s candidacy any, but that’s public information, and that’s in the public domain.”
Weale, who has concerned himself with beautification efforts — including raising issues about temporary signs — around town and in encouraging volunteer work to offset costs to both the township and school district, chose not to put up signs. He also chose to spend only in the hundreds of dollars on his campaign, in keeping with his “minimalist” views.
Weale says he continues to be dismayed at some of the township’s expenditures and a perceived number of unanswered questions (see letter page 2). “I’ve asked for an explanation on those things, and all I hear from the administration is excuses.”
In the council race, Geevers received the support of 3,”583 voters — 73 percent of those who went out to the polls — and Khanna received 3,”071, or 62 percent of the vote. Nitin Shah and Anupam Gupta, Morgan’s running mates, received 1,”448 and 1,”332 votes, respectively.
At the Geevers household on election night, there was seemingly no worry or doubt looming before the first of the voting results began trickling in, and the mood became boisterous as the night progressed.
Geevers arrived home shortly after the polls closed, frantically preparing herself for the slew of more than 60 guests — including council members Heidi Kleinman, Diane Ciccone, and George Borek, as well as Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu, WW-P school board vice president Robert Johnson, and County Executive Brian Hughes — who would later pour into her house.
But as the results arrived, applause and congratulatory messages began spewing, although Geevers tried to quell the good tidings until all the reporting was in or Morgan’s team called to concede.
Members of the West Windsor First campaign team emphasize the large margin of victory. “It just feels great because it was a decisive win,” Geevers told her supporters as they crammed around her dining room table to listen to her speech. “We ran a positive campaign.”
The voter turnout was higher than it had been in recent years, at 31 percent this year, with 4,”940 of the township’s 16,”163 registered voters showing up at the polls.
In 2007, during the highly contested council race in which Morgan as well as Borek and former councilman Will Anklowitz were elected, voter turnout was at 23 percent, with 3,”188 of the township’s 13,”713 registered voters heading to the polls. In that year, the winning slate claimed a “mandate” after the victory. Morgan received 1,”856 votes in that election — fewer than he did this time, with 1,”306 of the vote.
In the 2005 mayoral election, 29 percent, or 4,”033 of the township’s 14,”020 registered voters, participated in the elections. In that year, Hsueh garnered 3,”566 votes to Alison Miller’s 514.
Geevers said her immediate goals on council would be to continue the township’s financial responsibility by trying to maintain its AAA bond rating and working for more openness in government.
“I appreciate the voters, I appreciate their trust of me, and it makes me feel that I need to continue doing what I’m doing,” Hsueh said.
During his speech to supporters, Hsueh thanked them not only for their support over the past eight years, but “especially for the past few months.” He said early in his position as mayor, his wife did not want him to stay involved in the sometimes outlandish West Windsor political scene, but after reading the newspapers over the past year, “she said, ‘I want you to run again.’”
But Hsueh also took the time to address what he says were the inaccuracies aired in public by Morgan during the campaign — particularly concerning the township’s AAA bond rating as it relates to the budget and to township staff’s involvement in the budget process, and Morgan’s action in “taking credit” for fixing the driveway apron problem in the Village Grande development.
Hsueh, however, tried to be conciliatory. “West Windsor has been ranked number one in the whole nation to raise a family, and we need to work together to keep it that way,” he said.
Khanna said he was excited at the chance to move forward and that he was ready to “start working on the effectiveness and efficiency of the government.” Echoing Hsueh’s message to work together, Khanna said a main issue was managing growth in the township and that “every project has to be looked at to make sure it is tax positive” before moving forward.
He also said he is ready to work with Morgan on Council. “I’m a businessman; I can work with anyone,” he said.
At Morgan headquarters, campaign workers and other guests gathered at the home of council candidate Anupam Gupta on Restrick Court in the Southfield Meadow development to total up the votes. By 8:30 or so Morgan, who was personally taking the calls from poll watchers and passing them along to an aide entering them into an Excel spreadsheet, shrugged his shoulders and said “it looks like a clean sweep. There’s already a 1,”000-vote difference with five districts left to report — that’s too much to overcome.”
What went wrong? As Morgan repeated several times, referring to the controversy over his budget proposal and its potential for tax savings, “having a chief financial officer put out a bogus report, a draft with lots of errors in it, is hard to overcome.” In the waning days of the campaign Morgan had demanded that the state launch a criminal investigation into Hsueh’s use of the township staff in defense of his budget, and on election night he seemed resolved to continue this battle. “He’s done things way beyond ‘dirty’ politics,” Morgan said. “We have to pursue the criminal thing.”
Morgan noted that “people have always felt that attack politics don’t work in West Windsor. But we’ve been on the receiving end of some brutal attacks. This could change the future of West Windsor politics.”
When Hsueh called to offer to “continue our communication,” Morgan seemingly had to resist the urge to resume the battle right on the spot. A wise course, said supporter Bob Murray, a former township committeeman and mayor. “Let the mayor enjoy his victory tonight. Tomorrow is another day.”
In front of the three dozen supporters gathered in the Gupta home, the candidates ended the night on the upbeat. “Instead of talking about the past we talked about what we could do,” said Morgan. The tax surplus vs. property tax relief issue was complicated, Morgan acknowledged, “and maybe we got lost in too much detail.” But “if we have the right story and we believe in it, then we have only our communication efforts to blame.”
Nitin Shah worried about voter apathy — moving the election to November was a frequent conversation item at the party — and the fact that a majority of voters “aren’t worried about what is going on in West Windsor.” The township, he added, “needs a lot of help.”
Gupta concurred that “it’s sad that so many West Windsor residents have not realized the gravity of the situation.” But Gupta called the campaign “a tremendous experience. I don’t think in terms of defeat or victory. I think in terms of how we have learned to contribute to our community. I now know the issues and the problems. I can go to Council and at least I can suggest possible solutions.”
At that point Bob Murray raised his hand to speak. “It’s easy to get down at a time like this, but we have to turn this into a positive, not a negative. Look at the team here. Look at the future candidates. Let’s build on what we have started.”
In addition to the three candidates, the room included former councilwoman and mayoral candidate Alison Miller; Sandy Donovan, who did much of the analysis of the budget surplus issue; and Virginia Manzari, who has been an active critic of the redevelopment process. The scene Tuesday night in the Gupta living room was in sharp contrast to election night, 2005, when Miller and her running mates, George Borek and David Siegel, were crushed by the Hsueh camp, which took nearly 90 percent of the vote. The party that night consisted of the three candidates and one reporter at the Miller home. It did not last long.
But, as someone noted at the Morgan gathering, even defeated candidates in West Windsor have a way of resurfacing. Two years after the Hsueh landslide Borek won a council seat on the Morgan ticket that was diametrically opposed to the mayor’s position on redevelopment. And on Tuesday night of this year, Borek was still in the thick of things — but not at the Morgan gathering. This time he was at Hsueh’s party — perhaps an indication of how the political winds had shifted once again.
— Cara Latham
and Richard K. Rein
