Five candidates seeking two seats in Manalapan
Shapiro, Barrack, DePasquale, Lucas & Cohen on ballot
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

Herbert Barrack

MANALAPAN - The Nov. 6 municipal election will give voters a menu of five candidates to choose from to fill two threeyear terms on the Township Committee.

The candidates are Republicans Andrew Lucas and Susan Cohen, Democrats Herbert Barrack and Drew Shapiro and independent candidate Joseph De- Pasquale.

Lucas is a member of the Township Committee and is serving as Manalapan's mayor in 2007. He is completing his first three-year term on the governing body. Lucas is a financial consultant.

Cohen is a member of the Township Committee who was appointed to fill an open seat on the governing body several months ago. She is seeking election for the first time. Cohen is a real estate sales manager. She is a member of the Manalapan Domestic Violence Crisis Team which meets with victims of domestic violence and refers those individuals to services which may assist them.

Shapiro served on the committee from January 2001 through December 2006. He did not seek re-election in 2006. Shapiro is a jewelry company owner.

Susan Cohen

Barrack is making his first bid for public office in Manalapan. Barrack is retired from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a member of the township Planning Board.

DePasquale is a member of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education. If he is elected to the Township Committee he will have to give up his seat on the school board. DePasquale owns and operates a powerwashing/ exterior maintenance business.

The running, and mutual, theme for this year's group of candidates seems able to be summed up in Rodney King's famous observation, "Can't we all just get along?"

All five candidates said one of their goals, if elected, would be to encourage more cordial relations not only among the members of the committee, but between the members of the committee and residents who speak on a variety of issues during township meetings.

DePasquale said the main reason he is running is to "restore respect" for the residents.

"The big issue for me is respect for the residents of the community," he said, adding that if he is elected he would like to work toward opening a community center that the "entire population of Manalapan can enjoy."

Joseph DePasquale

He said that as a business owner he would like to be able to take a look at the township's books in order to determine what is being spent by the municipality with an eye toward trimming expenses.

Cohen said she, too, if elected, intends to "listen to what (residents) want." She said she would like to make Manalapan's Internet Web site more interactive, making it easier and more encouraging for residents to contact municipal officials with their ideas and concerns.

Cohen said she would like to see Township Committee meetings be made available for viewing on the Web site so that residents who do not have cable television can see them. At present the municipal meetings are only broadcast on the cable TV system that serves Manalapan.

"I can't change the world, but I can answer to the residents of Manalapan. I intend to listen to them and try to encourage community participation in government," she said.

Andrew Lucas

If elected, Cohen said she planned to take a course known as radKids - which is described on its Internet Web site as a leader in personal empowerment safety education and violence prevention for children - in order to determine if it is worth adopting the program as a municipal initiative.

Cohen said she would work to develop a more aggressive pursuit of nontraditional funding and grants for municipal projects as well as a senior citizen mentoring project.

Barrack said he would bring "new energy" if he is elected to the governing body. "We need to raise voter confidence in elected officials," he said.

Barrack said that as a retired senior executive with the EPA he would bring an expertise to the governing body that would be an asset due to his understanding of how local, state and federal governments work.

He said he would work to add innovations like the use of solar power in municipal buildings to help reduce escalating energy costs.

Barrack said he would work to promote cost sharing incentives between area municipalities and school districts, along with working to "seek out and identify waste in operations and improve the morale and productivity of the township workforce. I will reach out to residents to promote open government."

Drew Shapiro

Barrack also cited the environment, open space, recreation and health and safety as special concerns.

Regarding the tenure and tone of the political discourse, Barrack said, "I will work earnestly to achieve a sense of respect and harmony regardless of political affiliation so we can all focus on how to best serve our community."

Barrack said he believes there is a "gap" between residents and the Township Committee; a gap he would work to breach by "reaching out so there is more of an awareness of what people's needs are."

Shapiro said he re-entered the political arena because he wants to use the experience he already has regarding municipal service. Prior to his service on the Township Committee, Shapiro served on the Planning Board.

"I can offer the town a lot of my experience and knowledge," he said, adding that if elected he would "do my best to make sure that Manalapan is not crippled by the most devastating project in its history, The Village at Manalapan."

The Village at Manalapan received Planning Board approval in 2006 for a 500,000-square-foot retail project to be built on a 135-acre parcel at the corner of Route 33 and Millhurst Road.

The board's approval was for a community shopping center that would include a supermarket and related stores; a lifestyle shopping center that has been compared to the Grove retail center in Shrewsbury; and professional office space.

The project approved by the Planning Board does not include any homes at The Village at Manalapan site.

The project's developer later sought to have homes included in the plan; that request remains unaddressed at the local level while state affordable housing guidelines are being reconsidered in Trenton.

Shapiro, who counts establishing the Mayor's Special Needs Council as a hallmark of his prior elected service, said that if he is elected he will work to develop more programs like that, as well as continuing the sidewalk renovation work that started under his prior administration and the setback initiatives he said he helped to establish "so that Route 33 doesn't turn out looking like Route 9."

Shapiro said he would like to establish a municipal advisory board comprised of senior citizens in order to get their input not only on matters of importance to them, but to the community as a whole.

Lucas said if he is re-elected he would continue to work to preserve Manalapan's open space. He said he would like to see at least another 500 acres added to the 300 acres he said have been preserved under his watch.

Noting that this year's increase in municipal property taxes was inevitable due to the spending practices of previous years, Lucas said his main goal would be to "keep our tax rate flat for the next five years while maintaining fiscal responsibility in the budget process."

Lucas, who said Manalapan officials are in the process of seeing to the fine points of a shared services agreement with the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District, said he would also turn his attention to developing more shared service agreements with neighboring towns and with the Freehold Regional High School District.

A debate among the candidates for Township Committee is scheduled to be held at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 at the municipal building, Route 522 at Taylors Mills Road.

Manalapan's governing body is made up of five people elected at large in the municipality. Residents do not directly elect a mayor. Each January the committee members elect one person from the panel to serve as mayor for the year. The mayor does not have additional powers.