Question to BOE & Town Council Candidates #4: Special Interests, Influence & Money

Our responses from BOE Members on Academic Achievement will be published in a couple of days

NJ21st sent our next question to both BOE and Town Candidates today with responses due on 10/26/2024..:

The Mayor’s husband is running for BOE, and Councilwoman Margaret Illis is managing the EIC (DeBang, Moore, Terrero) Ticket Facebook page; the Democrat club hosted a forum whose leadership is also going door to door with the EIC ticket (based on information from concerned group members), and Ms. Terrrero (EIC ticket) has also been attending Republican political functions.  

Ms. Tererro’s record as PTO president involved initiating removals of other PTO officers for expressing an opinion about the School District and texting PTO officers harassing messages for holding breakfasts.

Ms. Varnerin, Chair of the Recreation Commission, Chair for the Board of Elections, and a Municipal Tax Collector for another township, is on the BOE petition for Mr. Devanney, who has promised to work on delivering a Turf field she has consistently advocated for that the public still has not seen the lease agreement for.

On the media front, Tap-Into has been corrected by several BOE members on its factually inaccurate and biased reporting of unpaid bills and by the record itself on the transportation issue – these inaccuracies and bias appeared to benefit those tickets that consistently pay advertising dollars for their campaigns— and this week the NJ Monitor exposed yet another TAP-Into news outlet as a “pink slime” site.

We are also aware that several candidates have sought endorsements from the Teachers Union, which has a notorious history of connection to Dark Money.

All of this occurs within a context where spending on political campaigns in our community has exploded over the past ten years.

If elected, how can residents be sure you represent their interests, the interests of every day people, rather than those of powerful and connected organizations, donors and individuals supporting you?

Do you ever plan to respond to grassroots, independent, issue-oriented, non-corporate information outlets that do not rely on political dollars or profit?

NJ21st received responses on prior questions from Dr. Foregger, Matthew Behne, and Arik Samson in

We did not receive responses to prior questions from any of the Town Council Candidates or BOE Candidates Ruth Debang, David Moore, George Devanney, Pamela Stanley and Deb Terrero to prior questions.

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