South Orange Voters Lean Toward Charter Changes

On Tuesday, the South Orange portion of the Essex County election ballot asked voters regarding changes in the Village’s charter.  After Tuesday’s ballots were counted, voters leaned towards being in favor of all three questions.  Mail-in and absentee votes still need to be counted.

In Question 1, voters were asked “Should the Village Charter be amended to change the name of our municipality from the ‘Township of South Orange Village’ to ‘South Orange Village’?”  Voters overwhelming support this 1938 voting aye, while 548 voted nay. 

Question 2 asked voters “Should the Village Charter be amended to change the title of the ‘Village President’ to ‘Mayor,’ the title of the ‘Board of Trustees’ to ‘Village Council,’ and the title of ‘Trustee’ to ‘Councilmember’?”  Voters supported this as well by a large margin 1448-1023.

Question 3 was the most divisive question on the ballot.  It asked “Should the Village Charter be amended to provide the Village President an annual stipend of $2,400, without other benefits, and provide Village Trustees an annual stipend of $1,800 each, without other benefits?”  Voters were split almost evenly on this with 1237 voting yes and 1228 voting no.  Almost every district in the village was split evenly on this question. 

With the absence of mail-in votes and absentee ballots, the final answer to the third question can be deemed “too close to call.”

After the votes were counted, Village President Alex Torpey who earlier this week sent an e-mail to supporters in support of all three questions, weighed in with how the board will handle the results.

“I’m glad we had this chance to get public input and it will definitely be valuable to the board when we take up those issues,” Torpey said following the election.

The Board of Trustees must now decide how to proceed with the results of these questions, as well as the other .

In other election news, the democratic candidates for l.

"I'm excited to continue working with state legislators who have done an excellent job representing South Orange residents in Trenton," said Torpey.