Moorestown Patch Letter To The Editor: Council Candidates Need To Debate

To the Editor:

Once again, Moorestown citizens find themselves with choices for Moorestown Town Council. Everyone can agree that informed voters are the best voters.

Unfortunately, and once again, three local candidates are evading debating critical issues in front of voters. Instead of Moorestown First, the political ambitions of Victoria Napolitano, Phil Garwood and Michael Locatell are apparently first.

In recent years, the Burlington County League of Women Voters have moderated debates in Moorestown for the Moorestown Board of Education, for the New Jersey 3rd Congressional District, for the New Jersey 7th Legislative District, and for the Burlington County Board of Freeholders.

There certainly has been interest. There are certainly issues and policies to discuss. Most of the debates mentioned above had large audiences. But every two years, the local Republican candidates have come up with weak alibis and refuse to participate.

In 2012, the Moorestown Patch held a videotaped voter forum, but the candidates Victoria Napolitano, Phil Garwood and Peter Palko refused to participate unless they had total control over the resulting video content.

Again, in 2014, the Republican candidates just could not make time for a debate to be sponsored by the Moorestown Business Association, and moderated by the League of Women Voters.

This year, with three out of five seats on the Council up for election, Victoria Napolitano, Phil Garwood, and Michael Locatell have come up with an especially creative and curious excuse; the League of Women Voters is politically biased.

Never mind that the League of Women Voters has successfully moderated many recent candidate debates in Moorestown, and without a hint of political bias. But the only acceptable alternative for Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Garwood and Mr. Locatell is rather unprecedented.

Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Garwood and Mr. Locatell will only participate in a debate if moderated by the Moorestown Ethics Board. This situation would be fraught with conflicts of interest.

This would not only be clearly outside the duties and responsibilities of the township Ethics Board, but also more disturbing, Ms. Napolitano, Mr. Garwood and the current council appointed the members of the Moorestown Ethics Board.

To Victoria Napolitano, Phil Garwood, and Mike Locatell, please stop the nonsense. Your intransigence does not serve the Moorestown citizens, only your political ambitions.

You do not have the interests of Moorestown First. If you want to serve the public, engage in a reasonable voter debate so that the public can attend and be informed. Informed voters make the best voters.

Mark Hines