Republicans to square off for council nomination

Republicans
to square off
for council
nomination
Democrat Burrows
seeking to retain
Marlboro position
BY LARRY RAMER
Staff Writer

There will be a Republican primary battle in June as two Marlboro residents seek their party’s nomination to run for a one-year unexpired term on the Township Council in the November general election.

Two residents will square off in the June 8 Republican primary — Michael Viggiano and Karen Anne Zaletel.

There is no contest in the Democratic primary, where only one person, Councilman Grover Burrows, filed to run for the available council seat.

The person who wins in November will serve the final year (2005) of former councilwoman Ellen Karcher’s unexpired term. Karcher resigned from the council in December after winning election to the state Senate.

Burrows was appointed by council members to fill Karcher’s seat for 2004. He will seek election in November to remain in office for the final year of Karcher’s term.

Burrows, 48, a computer programmer/
analyst, was a zoning board member for almost four years before he was appointed to the council. Before being appointed to the council in December, Burrows ran for a full four-year term in the November 2003 election but lost by 130 votes.

Burrows said he initially became involved in local issues about seven years ago when he helped organize a group of residents to oppose a proposed housing development called Mountain Ridge.

He said that if he is elected to remain on council he will seek to keep a lid on property taxes.

"I want to make sure that taxes don’t go through the roof," Burrows said.

The Democrat said he should be elected in order to preserve what he re­ferred to as checks and balances in the township government.

Mayor Robert Kleinberg is a Republican, as are two of the five council members, Joe Pernice and Patti Morelli. If a Republican defeats Burrows in November the GOP will control the may­or’s office and the council beginning on Jan. 1, 2005.

Burrows said he supports limited, rea­sonable development in Marlboro.

"We must build, zone and plan cor­rectly," he said.

As a former member of the zoning board, Burrows said he has the know-how to ensure that Marlboro officials carry out responsible planning.

"Nobody brings more experience to the table [in land use] than I have," Burrows said, adding that he supports good gov­ernment and ethics reform. "Nobody has a corner on the market of good govern­ment."

Viggiano, 54, a resident of Marlboro since 1983, was a special agent in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security from 1974-2001. From 2001 to the present he has been a self-employed investigator for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Viggiano, who is being supported by Kleinberg, Pernice and Morelli, said he is running for a seat on the council in order to reduce the pace of development in Marlboro.

"I’ve seen the town grow to the point where I’ve become disappointed by what seems to be unregulated development," he said.

The candidate said he would support what he sees as the efforts by Kleinberg, Pernice and Morelli to control develop­ment in the community.

"Maybe by supporting the mayor and the two new council members we can somehow slow and regulate develop­ment," Viggiano said.

The candidate said he would try to make Marlboro’s government more ac­countable and responsible to residents.

"I had the sense that in the previous administration people were not as ethical as they could be," Viggiano said. "I worked in government for 30 years. I know how bureaucracy can move away from being accountable to the people. I will evaluate [the local government] and determine if internal controls are work­ing."

Burrows and Viggiano said they would work with their colleagues from the other party in a bipartisan manner.

Zaletel, 42, a retired Wall Street stock broker, said she would seek to "help save the taxpayers money" if she is successful in her bid to win a council seat.

The candidate, who said she would never support any municipal tax in­crease, called for an end to the awarding of no-bid contracts and an audit to find ways of cutting municipal expenses.

"I would demand quality work" from contractors, she added.

Zaletel ran unsuccessfully for the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders in 2003 on the Keep Monmouth County Green ticket and for U.S. Congress in 2002 as a Conservative Party candidate.