Reader says , “I would hope that we could all agree that the law applies to everyone and should be followed.”

“As the only statute cited on the original OVOV petition was from Title 40, governing the initiative petition process, the Village Clerk was only compelled to cite concerns within that law in her response. It was not her responsibility to address the requirements of the Title 19 statutes governing the moving of school elections until the petitioners chose to cite N.J.S.A. 19:60-1.1 on their amended petition. The judge chose to ignore that.”

“Also, the Village Clerk did inform OVOV in her certification of the deficiencies in their original petition of the necessity to have two distinct petitions for the two distinct actions sought to move the election dates of two distinct units of our local government. This requirement is cited in the Title 40 statute cited in their petition as well. The petitioners chose to ignore that, as did the judge.

The problem remaining is the ordinance itself, which by law, would be considered null and void as written. The judge was made aware of that and chose to ignore that as well. Her judgment did not stipulate what would happen to the faulty ordinance if it passed, only its placement on the ballot.

Regardless of the election results, we have to consider whether a precedent should be set to facilitate the circumvention of so much law. That would be a steep price to pay for something that could just as easily be placed on another ballot in conformance with the respective governing statutes. One has to wonder, as there was a statutory requirement for a public hearing on the proposed ordinance before it was placed on the ballot, how that important part of the process, which was circumvented here, would have affected the results of the election.

Whatever is done will affect years of local elections to come. I think it’s important to get it right. No doubt, the supporters of the OVOV petition would not like to see this happen with something they did not agree with. I would hope that we could all agree that the law applies to everyone and should be followed.”

(UNOFFICIAL) Village of Ridgewood
Contest: Municipal Question – Village of Ridgewood, VOTE FOR 1
Municipal Question – Village of Ridgewood
(VOTE FOR 1)
Candidate Name Total Votes Percentage
YES  7,143 58.56%
NO    5,055 41.44%