Montclair Township Council-Ward 1
The Montclair Township Council is comprised of six members, of which two council seats are elected from the township at-large and one council seat is elected from each of four wards.This election is for representation on the Montclair Township Council from Ward 1.
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Erik D'Amato
(NP)
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Shivaun Gaines
(NP)
What will be your highest priority as a Council member?
What, if any, actions will you take to address the township's legal issues?
Slogan
"Clean Government Advocate"
My highest priority and “North Star” will be a municipal government that is honest, accountable and transparent. Candidates often exaggerate what can be quickly accomplished, but a philosophy of clean, good government can be enacted on “day one,” by immediately conducting Council business in full compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act and Open Public Records Act, and not using Township resources to engage in the kind of favoring-trade with political networks like we’ve seen over the past few years. Longer-term it means creating a culture in which hires, promotions and vendor and shared-service contracts are fully free of nepotism, patronage and “pay-to-play” practices.
The Township government’s many legal entanglements largely flow from the same culture of unaccountability that have led to so many other issues. Here a new Council can make a difference quite quickly, by itself not engaging in discrimination and harassment, and making it very clear that there will be no tolerance for such behavior by others. And a new Council should immediately end the practice of steering lucrative legal contracts to politically-connected firms, with some of those bills ending up recycled as campaign donations or favors. Overall, our legal bills should be used as a metric to judge the success of a new Council.
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