West Windsor residents looking to get involved in local politics will have the chance to run for election to fill a seat vacated by former Councilman William Anklowitz, who left to take his new position as a state Superior Court judge in March.
The West Windsor Council selected Diane Ciccone in April to fill the seat until November, at which time she will run again for the chance to serve the remainder of the term, which expires on June 30, 2011.
Ciccone has said she intends to run to fill the remainder of the seat. Township officials are accepting petitions until 4 p.m. on Thursday, September 10 for township residents interested in running.
The election will take place on Tuesday, November 3. Petition forms are available in the township clerk’s office in the municipal building on Clarksville Road.
Anklowitz, 40, whose familial roots have been in West Windsor since the 1930s, began his legal career when he was doing work with the public defender’s office beginning in 1995. In 2001 he left his own practice to become a per diem attorney with the office until they hired him as staff a year later. He has been working as a public defender ever since.
Ironically, Anklowitz was first elected to council during a special election in November, 2006.
Ciccone, a West Windsor resident for nine years, has served as a member of the Planning Board since 2006, before being selected to serve in Anklowitz’s place until November.
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.
One of Ciccone’s main issues is sustainability — not just environmentally, but economically as well. In addition, “I want to continue to work with the mayor and administration to continue to provide a balanced and stable budget, and to try to hold down taxes as much as we possibly can,” she says.
Ciccone says she also wants to work to “provide an atmosphere on council so that we can work together and work with the mayor to do what’s best for the residents of West Windsor.”
Her other interests include road improvements “that include safe access for not only motorists, but for bicyclists and pedestrians as well.”
“The township runs well, and I want to make sure that I provide the insight and input to make sure it continues to do well,” she added.
At least one other resident has already said he will be filing a petition to run for the council seat in the upcoming election. Andrew Hersh, who applied as one of the 10 candidates for the seat when it first opened up in March, said then that even if he was not selected by the council (Ciccone ultimately was), he would run in November. He confirmed this month that he still plans to do so.
Hersh has lived in the township for three-and-a-half years and is a vice president with Marsh USA. Hersh grew up in Maryland. Both of his parents were in social work. His mother retired as part of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and his father worked with the mentally challenged, helping to place them into jobs.
Hersh has a son, Benjamin, who is three-and-a-half years old. He has a bachelors 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. Hersh led risk consulting in the Northeast and very recently began working with client relationships with Fortune 500 companies.
Hersh says he is interested in maintaining the township’s open space programs and ensuring that there are safe roads for bicyclists and pedestrians, since both he and his son ride their bikes on local roads.
But regardless of the issue, he says he just wants to “make sure we have continuous improvement in all of that. At the same time, I think that we should always be looking to run government a little bit smarter. While we’re looking to continuously improve, I think we also need to have volunteers in the community.”
He points to the budget as and area in which the government can be more efficient, including looking at challenging the assumptions on which the budgets are based, and looking for innovative ways — like seeking corporate donations for initiatives — to offset costs to taxpayers.
