Madison Council, Board of Ed Seats Up for Vote

Madison voters head to the polls from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday to elect representatives to the Borough Council and Board of Education.

(You can look up Madison polling locations on the Morris Elections website.)

In the school board election, three first-time candidates are running for the two seats, with Leslie Lajewski, Johanna Habib and Tom Piskula on the ballot. At a League of Women Voters forum, the candidates discussed their qualifications and answered questions about outsourcing custodians, what to do with the proceeds from the sale of the former Green Village Road School, and how to make school board meetings more transparent, among other topics. You can read about the forum here.

For Borough Council, five candidates—two Republicans, two Democrats and an independent—will be on the ballot.

Incumbent Robert Catalanello is running for re-election. He's running with Board of Education Vice President Patrick Rowe as the Republican ticket.

Maureen Byrne, a four-year member of the Downtown Development Commission and chairman of the Friends of the Madison Public Library, and Jeff Gertler, an 11-year member of the Planning Board and six-year member of the Environmental Commission, are the Democratic ticket.

Former Councilman Sam Cerciello is running as an independent.

The five candidates fielded audience questions at a forum last week. How to spend an anticipated electric utility surplus, and ways to strengthen Madison's downtown were among the topics discussed. You can see video of the event here.