UNION COUNTY LOCALSOURCE LOCALSOURCE.COM THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 — PAGE 3

Union campaigning results in incident reportsBy Cheryl Hehl

Staff WriterUNION — Nick Basile and

Charles Donnelly believe everypolitical party has the right to cam-paign. Last week, though, theRepublican party members discov-ered that not everyone is so happy tosee them.

It all began when Basile decidedto hand out Republican campaignfliers for Matt Kurinzi, the GOPchallenger candidate for townshipcommittee. After trying to decidewhere the best location might be,they settled on the annual SeniorCitizen Spaghetti dinner at the sen-ior center on Bonnell Court.

"I knew there would be a lot ofseniors going to the dinner so I head-ed over there and started handing outfliers. The next thing I knew, thesenior services director PhyllisMonguso comes running out yell ingthat we couldn't hand out fliers nearthe door, that we had to go back 100-feet," Basile explained.

So Basile said he moved back100-feet, he says, and continued tohand out fliers until two police carsarrived on the scene.

"I know that woman went back inthere and called the police, but wewere within our rights to hand outthose fliers," the veteran said.

"I fought for our country to havethe rights we do and I wasn't goingto leave," Basile added. "I knew thelaw was on my side, but the policeseemed confused about the law con-cerning campaigning."

Basile said that despite a thirdpolice car arriving on the scene tofill out an "incident report," he neverhad a problem with them gettinginvolved.

"The police were very nice to us.We don't have a' problem withthem," Basile said, but he did feelthat because Mayor Joseph Florio isrunning for re-election against Kur-inzi and just happened to be attend-ing the spaghetti,; dinner thatevening, that might n"ave something

Photo By Cheryl Hchl

Charles Donnelly was handing out fliers on behalf of the Republican candidate inUnion on Friday. But in the previous days, handing out fliers came with more thanthe man bargained for.

to do with what took place.One person who attended the

dinner, but preferred their name notbe used, said there were other mem-bers of the five-member Democratictownship committee in attendance atthe dinner and they were not happyto hear members of the oppositionwere handing out fliers to seniors asthey came into the building.

Monguso readily admitted thatwhen she heard there were peopleoutside handing out fliers she rushedoutside.

"1 never yelled, they were told tomoye back 100 feet because theywere causing the seniors coming into back up. I didn't want to see any-one trip or fall," she explained, not-ing that as the men handed out thefliers,'the line of seniors going intothe building would stop suddenly.

"I had 240 seniors coming to our

annual dinner and since they allarrive pretty much at the same time,my job was to ensure they arrivedsafely in the building," Mongusosaid Friday.

"I just told them to move backand let the seniors access to thebuilding, I didn't need anyone tostop the crowd," she added.

But when asked if she calledpolice to the scene, Monguso wasevasive.

"We always have a police officeron duty at our events," she said.

Monguso also said that Floriowas at the dinner because he is thetownship commissioner of seniorservices.

"Yes he was there, and so weremembers of the advisory board,some of which are township com-mittee members," she said.

Last week Police Director Daniel

Zieser confirmed that the policewere called at 4:06 p.m. about thecampaign workers and a car was dis-patched to the scene.

"If another patrol car is in thearea and hears the call, he usuallygoes to the call to see if he can help,"Zieser added, also confirming thatlater a third car with a supervisorarrived to take the incident report.

"That is normal procedure for apolice officer to take an incidentreport when they respond to a call,"he added.

According to Union CountyBoard of Elections Director DennisKobitz, there is no 100-foot rule dur-ing campaigning. Unless, of course,a municipality has a local ordinancepreventing it.

The only time the 100-foot ruiefor campaigning is in effect is onelection day when campaigners, by

law, are required to stay 100-feetaway from a polling place.

There are several other rules,though, that could thwart campaignworkers efforts, including not hav-ing the name of the person who paidfor the flier on the bottom of piece.Party members also cannot postfliers on telephone poles becausethey are privately owned, or harasspeople into taking a flier.

Last week, after the spaghettidinner debacle, Basile and Donnellydecided to spend several hours eachday in back of the municipal build-ing on Morris Avenue handing ourfliers for their candidate. Althoughthey expected that this would gosmoothly after what took place theprevious Friday, Basile reported thata police car showed up within ashort time after they arrived andremained on the scene for severalhours.

Zieser said a homeowner whocame to the municipal building topay her taxes called police andreported there were two men hang-ing around the back of the municipalbuilding.

"I think she was concernedbecause she was elderly and wascarrying cash with her," he said,adding that this is the time periodwhen homeowners pay their quarter-ly taxes.

Basile had no problem with that,but wondered why the police vehiclestayed parked in the municipal lotobserving them.

Zieser said that police vehiclesare sent to the building every day,sometimes eight times or more.

"If there is a lot of money goingto the bank or records to pick up,they are there," the police directorsaid.

Friday Basile and Donnelly wereback outside the municipal buildingoffering fliers to those interested,politely explaining to those willingto listen what their candidate offered.

There was no police vehicle onthe scene.

Mayors join forces to tackle ongoing flood problemsBy Cheryl Hehl

Staff WriterCRANFORD. — Although flooding has

been a major problem in the area for decades, itis now the number one priority for surroundingtowns who have joined forces to find a solutionto the problem.

Late last month the Rahway River Water-shed Conference on Flood Control was hostedby the township at Union County College. Theresult was a unified effort to do somethingabout the flooding that has plagued towns alongthe river.

Saying it was a regional problem, CranfordMayor Dan Aschenbach told those attendingthe conference that it would take all the townsgetting together to solve the flooding problemsfrom storms like Hurricane Irene.

Leo Coakley, an engineer from Hatch MottMcDonald, explained how a storm like Irenemanaged to create such unprecedented flood-

ing."The extended period of rain in the weeks

proceeding Hurricane Irene left the ground sat-urated," he said, adding that the 18 inches ofrain that fell during Irene "made it impossiblefor the ground to absorb the rainwater."

Coakley also explained that the east andwest branches of the Rahway river near Route280 make their way through Springfield, Cran-ford and Rahway as well as other parts of thecounty. On the night of the hurricane, the twobranches peaked around 2 a.m.

The engineer also pointed out that whilemany residents thought a dam broke, that wasnot true.

Coakley said there are a number of solutionsall of the towns affected by floodwaters canconsider, but they have to start looking at pre-venting flooding in the first place.

He said towns have to start addressingissues like redevelopment or new construction

projects to see how they might impact townsalong the river. Other suggestions focused on,for example, improving bridges along the Rah-way River Watershed.

"When you eliminate flooding by lettingmore water through you would help floodingbut you have to look downstream so the waterhas a place to go," Coakley said, adding thatincludes looking very closely at levies andHood walls.

"Levies can be a means of keeping floodwater out of residential areas," he said, butwithout combining these efforts with measuresdownstream, the water will have no where togo. But regardless what improvements aremade, Coakley stressed to those in attendancethat one thing would not change.

"No one thing will solve the problems facedby those living along the river, but maybe ifthey are combined, it will help," he said, noting,though, that "this area is still a flood plain."

Out of the meeting came the formation of aMayor's Council on Rahway River WatershedFlood Control, comprised of mayors fromtowns along the river. Participating wasAschenbach, Mayor Sandra Haimoff, Millburn,Mayor Joseph Florio, Union, Mayor Hugh Kef-fer, Springfield, Mayor Kathi Fiamingo, Kenil-worth, Mayor Margaret McManus, Winfield,and Mayor Rick Proctor, Rahway.

Some of the mayoral suggestions includedraising homes in flood-prone areas, raisingdams upstream to contain floodwaters,approaching flooding on a regional basis andensuring that each municipality is committed tofinancially contributing what it will take to getflooding under control.

However, while enthusiasm for towns form-ing a united effort was high, Springfield Engi-neer Robert Kirkpatrick warned that the roadmight not be as easy as they think.

"We all want to anticipate that there is a goalSee MAYORS, Page 6