Election 2016: Experienced Republican vs. Democratic newcomer in Morris Township

By Peggy Carroll

Peter Mancuso and Pamela Sheldrick  both are long-time residents of Morris Township. Mancuso and his wife, Lois, moved here in 1968 and raised four sons. Sheldrick and her husband, Mike, have lived here since 1971 and raised their daughter here.

Both were born on New York City, one in Brooklyn, the other in the Bronx.

Both have strong ties to the community and have served as leaders in the county’s institutions and organizations.

Both are their party’s candidates for a seat on the five-member Morris Township Committee in the Nov. 8, 2016, election. And both are “senior citizens,” though their campaign literature doesn’t give their age, and both are grandparents.

There the similarities end.

During the last 40 years, Mancuso, a Republican, has been mayor, committeeman, finance chairman and police commissioner, and mayor emeritus. Right now, he is deputy mayor.

His campaign emphasizes his experience in local government and his experience in business. (He is a retired governor of the New York Stock exchange).

His message: The achievements of the Republican government in the township, which he calls one of the best-run towns in the state. His goal: To keep the township a suburban community, a great place to raise a family.

Sheldrick, his Democratic opponent, is making her first bid for elective office. She brings to the table experience as a journalist, a business owner, a fitness adviser, and a leader in organizations for women and health.

Her message: The Township needs a fresh vision and strong Democratic voice. Her goal: To end one-party rule, end “closed door” government and bring greater transparency to the Committee’s actions.

Were this election held a few decades back, there would be no real contest. Between 1973 and 2007, not a single Democrat served on the Committee.

A CHANGING TOWN

Times are different now. While the Committee is entirely Republican, Democrats have won seats in recent years. Republicans no longer are the only party in town.

The Morris County Clerk’s office says the divide between the parties is closing. According to county figures, 31 per cent of township residents are registered Democrats, 34 percent Republicans.

This closeness has led to equally close elections. Jeff Grayzel who broke the party barriers in 2007, won office after a recount and a court-ordered runoff.

In 2014, Grayzel called for a recount again. This one reduced the gap between him and second-place finisher Louise Johnson from 15 to 14 votes. Grayzel conceded.

And just last year Republicans Matheu Nunn and Bruce Sisler won re-election with 2,083 and 2,043 votes, respectively, defeating Democratic challengers – again Jeff Grayzel (2,041) –and Cathy Wilson (2,020).

Yet despite the narrowing gap between parties, there is a greater unknown, Mancuso said. That is the group called Independents. They account for 35 per cent of voting residents

And it is those voters who the candidates are reaching out to – ringing doorbells and talking to people, without regard to their political preferences.

Says Mancuso, who spends many of his days walking township streets, “I am showing what good government looks like.”

Says Sheldrick: “There are over 5,000 registered Democrats in the Township, only a few hundred less than the Republicans, yet not a single seat on the Committee is held by a Democrat. This must end.”

ABOUT PETER

Peter Mancuso was born and bred in Brooklyn, well before it was the “it” borough of New York City. He went to schools in the city– to St. Francis Prep, to Fordham for his undergraduate degree in economics, to New York University for an MBA.

He started his career at what was then called First Boston. In 1968, he was invited to join a firm on the New York Stock Exchange. He accepted, bought a seat and stayed for 38 years. In his last years, he was one of 20 governors of the Exchange.

That year, he also moved to Morris Township. It was a revelation to him, he says. “I was from Brooklyn,” he laughs. “I never saw streets without sidewalks before.”

He first ran for the Township Committee in 1977, sparked by the concern of residents about the state’s plans for realigning Route 24. He stayed on until 1987, when he “retired.”

He kept active politically, running unsuccessfully for state Senate, first against John Dorsey and then against Anthony (Tony) Bucco. He didn’t lose by much and he remained politically interested.

Then he retired from the Stock Exchange. And suddenly, he laughs, “The winter took a year to pass. You’d get up, have breakfast and then wonder what to do for the rest of the day.”

It took him back to what he knew well: Local politics. He is now seeking his third three-year term since his return. Altogether, he has served five terms – 15 years.

Mancuso has also served with a laundry list of institutions and organizations in Morris County. Among them: Chairman of the board of the County College of Morris, the Morris Museum, First Night Morris and the Township’s 250th anniversary celebration; and as a board member for the Morristown Medical Center, the College of St. Elizabeth, the Mayo Performing Arts Center and the NJ Olympic Committee.

He and his wife have four sons – Peter, John, Richard and Kenneth (now a Benedictine monk), and four grandchildren.
ABOUT PAM

Sheldrick was born in the South Bronx and lived with her grandparents until she was 10 when she moved to Perth Amboy. She recalls coming to Morristown the first time on a school trip a year later.

“We sat on the steps under the statue of George Washington, across from Washington’s Headquarters,” she remembers.”I had never seen such a beautiful town.”

She went to Douglass College (then the women’s college of Rutgers), then moved to Manhattan where she met and married Mike Sheldrick. Two months after their wedding, they moved to the Township, their first house just a few blocks from her first perch near the headquarters.

Sheldrick said she started out as a member of Young Americans for Freedom and turned off feminists.

One job interview changed that.

Her degree was in journalism and her first interview, three days after graduation, was with Newsweek. There she was told that women served as researchers; the writers were men. “When I asked about advancement, the interviewer laughed,” she said.

Two days later, she was hired by Vogue. A month later, she joined NOW.

A year later, Newsweek women filed a class action suit – which they won.

NOW remains a focus. She is a former president of the Morristown chapter and is an active member. She was also a director of Planned Parenthood in Morristown and a member of the League of Women Voters.

Over the years, she says, she was on the staff of three newspapers, including the Daily Record, where she was a night editor.

Now, she is on the staff of two area YMCAs, where she is involved in the national Live Strong program for cancer survivors and the national Delay the Disease program for people with Parkinson’s. She also teaches fitness classes for seniors.

For 26 years, she was owner of Pandora Book Peddlers, a store that concentrated on multicultural and feminist books, named for the Pandora of Greek myth. The first 10 years were in Bergen County and the last 16 in Madison. She served as president of the Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Downtown Development Commission.

If her bid for office is coming late, she is following a family pattern. When her father was her age, he took up local politics in Lancaster County, PA, angry that the lack of housing codes was leading to shoddy construction.

“He never lost his Bronx accent,” she laughed. “So people remembered him.”

She and her husband have one daughter, Rachael, who lives in a suburb of Chicago with her husband and two children.

WHAT THEY SAY

“I’m running on my record of 15 years of service as a Township Committeeman,” Mancuso says, “delivering good government, a stable and decreasing tax rate and increased services.”

“Efficient government is not a recent discovery here,” he said.

He points to the Township’s bond rating of AAA, the best possible, which he said affirms that the township is one of the best in the state in managing tax dollars

And he notes that for the first time in a generation, the Township has actually decreased its property tax rate.

The challenge, he believes, is to maintain the Township’s suburban character while continuing to offer  amenities, services, recreation, good schools and a “very low and stable property tax,” while establishing strong commercial ratables.

The Committee, he said, is running a small town and does the things that must be done in a small town.

“We plow the streets, pick up the garbage.”’

The object, he held, is to run that small town well and to do it at a reasonable cost.

Sheldrick says: “It’s time to open the doors. Behind closed doors decision making must yield to transparency. Posting the minutes of a meeting is not transparency.”

She plans, she said, to serve as a “watchdog” for the community.

She wants to end one-party decisions on land use, such as the recent Southgate project.

“This leaves residents’ concerns out of the picture and the land abused,” she claimed.

She also wants the township to survey senior citizens about their needs for transpiration, housing and the quality of life.

And, she added, “It’s time to bring the life-saving Operation Reassurance program” to the Township. The program assists senior citizens and disabled persons who live alone maintain their independence through a daily check-in call.

It’s time, she continued, to listen to parents who fear for their children because of drivers exceeding the speed limit, texting and passing stopped school buses.

And finally, she says it is time for the committee to question the Morris County Park Commission about its decision to allow crossbow hunting on public land, including Loantaka Reservation and Lewis Morris Park.

Now, the decision goes to the voters: Republicans, Democrats, and that very special group, the Independents.