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Speech at Cedar Crest 10/27/2010 Thank you for coming here tonight, your presence and participation is appreciated. I am Tom Andrea and I am running for the Pequannock Township Council. Let me tell you about the Council. There are five Council members and they are elected from the community at large. The Council people elect one of their members to be Mayor. Now let me tell you about this election, this year three of the five Council seats are up for election. So it is possible for a group of three candidates running together to be elected and to be in complete control of the town. So that would mean they would have enough votes so that one of them would be Mayor and they would have a veto proof majority on the Council. I am running to stop that. I don’t believe any one group of people should have complete control over the town. I will be on the ballot; it will be very simple to vote for me. My campaign slogan is “One vote for Andrea”. A vote for me is your best chance at stopping one group from having compete control over the town and rendering the other two Council people ineffective. Two things that cause me concern about the other candidates who will be on the ballot is their lack of community service experience and their spending for this election. One thing that distinguishes me from the other candidates that will be on the ballot is that I have a great deal of community service experience. I am a Member and Secretary of the Pequannock Environmental Commission. I received a Pequannock Township Public Schools “Solid Citizen Award”. I am a St. Mary’s Religious Education Teacher & Peacemaker’s Award recipient. I coach Pequannock Recreation Soccer Coach. I am a former Pequannock Community Dispute Resolution Committee Member, for that I was trained to be a mediator. My other concern is the spending for this election by my opponents who will be on the ballot. For my campaign I kept expenses way down, I had door hangers printed, I bought campaign signs and I gave away candies as prizes during the Ho-Down. All of that cost my campaign about $675 and I think that is a reasonable amount of money to spend on a campaign. At the Ho-Down my opponents who will be on the ballot gave away a big screen high definition LCD TV and an IPOD. For their campaign their spending is in the thousands of dollars. If my opponents who are on the ballot are elected will their high spending continue but this time with our tax dollars? One thing I don’t like hearing from candidates is elect me and I will. Why do we have to wait until you are elected for you to do something? I have been doing things for our community for years. As an Environmental Commission member I read that the County Department of Transportation could do a Walkable Communities Workshop with a town and produce a document that outlines improvements that could be made to an area to make it safer for pedestrians. That sounded great. I received the OK from the Environmental Commission. Then I received an OK from the township to proceed and to be the lead on the project. The workshop was held; it focused on the downtown section of Pequannock along Newark Pompton Turnpike. A lot of excellent ideas were developed. Now a document is being produced that will give us the plan to best improve pedestrian safety in that area. As an added bonus, a lot of the findings from the workshop could be applied to other areas in town. Some of the issues I want to work on are: Controlling taxes and fees paid to the town, making sure we are getting the most for our money. Work on reducing flooding in town and the emergency notification of residents. Keeping residents informed on what is going on in town, including televising Council Meetings. You should be able to see those Council meetings here at Cedar Crest. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet with you here tonight. Closing I need to address this: I will gladly accept any money the township gives me as a stipend. I visited the local Rotary and at the end of their meeting they sold raffle tickets. I bought two raffles tickets. I want to be financially able to help organizations in town. I want to use part of that stipend money to support organizations in our town. Last year I know the Parks and Recreation Department was looking for recycling lids. As a Councilman I could have used some of my stipend money to donate them to the town. There are other expenses that money will help with and I would put that money to good use. This is an important election. Control of Pequannock Township is being decided. Three out of five Council seats are up for election. I need your vote to bring a balance to the Council. I want a Council where there is a fair and balanced review of issues. I don’t want issues decided by one group. Elect me and I will be able to do even more. As my campaign slogan says “One Vote for Andrea”, you have three votes please make one of those votes for me. Thank you for your time and your consideration.
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