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Ghosts of a Former Mayor
It's been almost four years since Barbara Rowen was Hillside's mayor. But you wouldn't know it by attending the Township Council's organization meeting last week.
No doubt that the current council and mayor majority did not see eye to eye with the former Rowen administration and the activists to which that administration owed itself.
After all, it was Rowen and her organization that led the revolution to change Hillside's government from a bumbling, partisan commission into an accountable, non-partisan council-mayor system. And then it was Rowen and her grass-roots volunteers who wiped town hall clean of its Democratic machine lackeys in the 1997 election that made Rowen the first elected mayor of Hillside.
That era of good-government was short lived. It was only a matter of time before the current Council majority retook its control and made it impossible for Rowen to accomplish anything. In fact, political obstruction and revenge was all the council could think about. To be fair, the Council thought about other things too - such as doing all they could to tarnish Rowen's name, for instance.
It's really a shame how politics can be so domineering that the best interests of the community are ignored over personal political agendas. But the Council now has their majority, and what have they done?
Well, they've been excellent at blaming the "previous administration". They're good at showing that all their problems are the "previous council's" fault. The current Council has been in absolute control for over three years, and still they act as if Rowen is mayor.
Will the political posturing ever end? Sure it will. Just as soon as the Council puts an end to awarding lavish contracts to family, friends, county cronies and finally does something about the property taxes.
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