Campaigning on Polhemus Lane

Stuff had to go, and we didn’t have any place to dispose of it -- too big for the regular trash collection. There were two plastic recliners that had badly faded in the sun, two bags of hardened concrete mix, and a cracked bird feeder. The bird feeder was made of cast reinforced cement and was too heavy to lift: It broke in pieces under the blows of my sledge hammer.

Everything was placed in the back of the Subaru, and off we drove towards Polhemus Lane to off-load this junk at Bridgewater’s bulky waste disposal site. Check out www.bridgewaternj.gov/ for dates and times.

The long driveway into the disposal site has become a popular campaign spot for office seekers. Last Saturday, a bevy of politicians was waiting in a well-spaced line to greet everyone driving in.

Pat Walsh, Green Brook Mayor who is running as a Republican for Somerset County Freeholder, was the first to greet my wife and me. Walsh is a fiery woman who told us she is demanding the discharge of some top-level employees working for the Somerset County Park Commission. She wasn’t afraid to label some of the goings-on there as a result of the “old-boys” network.

Republican Patricia Flannery, incumbent mayor of Bridgewater who is running for re-election, was out campaigning with Matthew Moench, a newcomer hoping to garner his first seat on the Bridgewater Township Council.

In a subsequent telephone call to me later that day, Flannery advised me that the last Bridgewater Township budget went up by only 2.7%, while the corresponding share of the tax rate rose by 1.9%. We should be so lucky in hoping that the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board and its administration will hold their spending increases to the same level!

Not to be outdone, Democrats Bill O’Neill, hoping to unseat Flannery as mayor of Bridgewater, and Tony O’Reilly, hoping to land a township council seat were also there pumping hands. Bill O’Neill and his team are running on a “Coalition for Change.” O’Neill was Bridgewater’s Township Administrator under a previous Democrat mayor.

It’s not too early for we Bridgewaterites to start paying close attention to what these folks are saying. By now, we all know of the unfolding scandal at the Somerset County Park Commission and of the tug-of-war going on for its existence. We also know that Bridgewater has just embarked on a major building project for the new municipal complex.

Management issues at both these levels of government have now become prime topics in your consideration of who should be elected to oversee these responsibilities.