Plainfield Board of Ed campaigns stir

Signs for Jerry Green's BOE slate are so crowded you have
to get out of your car to read them, but they do include row numbers.

The independents' slate is more legible, but missing the ballot IDs.

 

Plainfield's 2014 Board of Ed campaigns have begun to stir, as evidenced by the signs seen sprouting around the city in recent days.

Assemblyman Jerry Green, chair of the Plainfield and Union County Democratic committees, has mounted his own slate of three candidates: Michael Horn (4), Norman Ortega (5) and Tania Center (6). In fact, the city's Democratic headquarters on Park Avenue in the Masonic Building is full of signs for the BOE candidates and nothing else at this point. It's a sad commentary on the fate of Plainfield's originally nonpartisan BOE elections.

Horn chaired the 2014 Citizens Budget Advisory Committee and Ortega created a stir a number of years ago with a series of letters in the Courier about Plainfield issues when he was a resident of North Plainfield; he has since moved to Plainfield and served briefly as a member of the Plainfield Advisory Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

An independent slate of three with no political affiliation is also running, and includes David Rutherford (2), Carletta Jeffers (3) and Terrence Bellamy, Sr. (7). David blogs regularly at PlainfieldView and is well-known around town.

The last of seven candidates vying for the three open seats is incumbent Dorien Hurtt (1), who is running solo.

Plainfield voters will select three candidates to serve on the Board of Ed at the November 4 general election. Plainfield was among a vast majority of school districts to move its election from April to November when the state offered the opportunity. One of the 'sweeteners' for the districts in the change of date was that citizens were no longer given the opportunity to vote on the school budget for elections held in November if the proposed budgets stayed within a cap.


CORRECTION: Mr. Horn was a member of the 2014 CBAC, not the chair -- Dan.

---

  -- Dan Damon [follow]

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.