On Tuesday, many of North Bergen’s 27,458 registered voters will head to the township’s 39 polling districts to vote for five among 10 candidates running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners.
The election, the first full-ticket contested election in more than eight years, pits three-term incumbent Mayor Nicholas Sacco and his entire slate of incumbent Board of Commissioners against an upstart ticket of challengers, headed by former Deputy Police Director Joseph Marino and containing four others.
The polling booths will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Voters will determine whether Sacco is still the popular political power he has always been, or if the recent rash of corruption charges against lower-ranking officials have tarnished his image. (Sacco has maintained that he knew nothing of the corruption and has spoken out against it.)
In North Bergen’s form of government, five commissioners are elected to a board, and from among them, they choose a mayor. Each commissioner also gets a department of expertise.
At first, it was believed that the campaign would be extremely heated and downright dirty, but the political mudslinging and name-calling have been kept to a minimum. The accusations from one of Sacco’s opponents in this election, Edward “Bo” Scannavino, have been flying at practically every Board of Commissioners’ meeting over the last three years, in anticipation of this year’s election.
However, the flavor of this campaign has been less than spicy.
In the last few weeks, some of Sacco’s multitudes of lime-green campaign signs have been defaced. Still, the Column B signs greatly outnumber Marino’s Column A red, white, and blue placards.
But, one member of the Column A team once noted, “Signs aren’t the ones who vote.”
A reporter took a random sampling of more than 100 North Bergen voters last Monday and Tuesday, a week before the election, to ask them who they were voting for and why.
If the sampling is any indication of what will take place at the voting booths this Tuesday, then it appears as if the residents of the town are not displeased with Sacco’s performance.
Of the 114 people polled, nearly 67 percent said they had planned to vote for Sacco and his ticket. Of the 76 people who said they planned to vote for the Sacco ticket, 52 mentioned Sacco’s name when saying whom they were voting for. There was no mention at all of the other four candidates, namely incumbents Theresa Ferraro, Hugo Cabrera, Frank Gargiulo, and Allen Pascual.
Thirty-three people polled said that they were voting for the Column A team. Five of the people polled said that they were still undecided.
Many others chose not to say who they were voting for and ignored the pleas of the reporter conducting the poll. But the results were startling. Sacco has apparently weathered the storm of the corruption controversy in the eyes of his constituents.
“I’m voting for Sacco,” said 78-year-old George Martens, a life-long resident of the township. “I know that there have been some bad people under his watch, but I don’t think he had anything to do with them. I think the town has gotten rid of the bad and brought in nothing but the good. I’m happy with the way the town is, and I want it to stay that way.”
“Mayor Sacco has survived the troubled times,” said 38-year-old Susan George, a mother of three. “Everyone has been out to get him for years, and he still keeps the good of the township first and foremost in his heart. I think he deserves to remain in office. He’s a good man who helps everyone.”
Many of the people who said that they were voting for the Sacco ticket believed the mayor is not directly involved with the corruption charges that have hovered over the town in the last 16 months and forced four officials, including former Commissioner Peter Perez and former Township Administrator Joseph Auriemma, to plead guilty and face prison sentences.
“There is no proof of Mayor Sacco being involved in any of that,” said Eddie Jiminez, a 41-year-old father of two school-aged children. “If he was guilty of being corrupt, I think something would have been released by now. But there is no proof, so I don’t think he’s involved. I think he deserves to remain in office. He’s done a great job for the town.”
There were also some vocal supporters of the Column A ticket, headed by Marino and featuring commissioner candidates Scannavino, Denis Jaslow, Guy McCann, and Marissa Suarez.
“I’ve been coaching youth football in this town for 18 years,” said Nelson Coll, an operations manager for a department store and a father of three. “I notice that most of the things that are done in the program are not done for the good of the kids. I’ve been a loyal soldier all along, and the kids are most important. But I’m just upset with the current administration and I’m worried about my kids. They only care about the vote.”
Jim Avella, a colleague of McCann’s who is active in the township’s Volunteer Baseball League, likes the makeup of the Marino team. “The ticket truly has some good candidates,” said Avella, an embroiderer and a 38-year-old father of four. “Joe Marino, Guy McCann, and Bo Scannavino are good people. They’re truly there for the kids and not there for anyone else. I know they want to end the corruption that is going on in the town. I feel from my heart that it’s a great ticket that can get the job done.”
Ben Ruiz, a 31-year-old operations manager and a father of two boys, said that he believes that it’s time for a change in the administration. “We definitely need change,” Ruiz said. “Anyone who has been in office for 18 years is way too long.”