April 4, 1985: Livingston voters approved the $22,581,594 school budget by a 2-1 majority, the Tribune reported on its front page 40 years ago this week.
In addition, new candidate Charles “Buddy” August and incumbent Alex Richardson were elected to three year terms on the school board. Despite an initiative to increase the number of voters, only 3,240 of the 18,040 eligible voters, or 17.96%, went to the polls.
Voting 3-2 along party lines, the Township Council gave final approval the proposed $8.2 million municipal budget for 1985.
The Council also announced the resignation of Eileen Wolf as the township’s senior citizen coordinator, and appointed Gertrude Measday to fill the vacancy. The Council gave no reason for the resignation of Wolf, who had been appointed to the position only two weeks earlier. She had replaced Roberta Schoenberg, who had organized the office and had held the coordinator’s job for five years.
During a special meeting, the Zoning Board of Adjustment heard testimony from a licensed professional planner on behalf of Short Hills West, Ltd. The applicant had applied for use, height, and stories variances and site plan approval for a proposed office building, which would be used primarily for medical offices. The building would occupy vacant land north of Saint Barnabas Medical Center, contingent upon the completion of the East Cedar Street extension.
New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean, a Shrewsbury Drive resident, chose the Holiday Inn in his home town of Livingston as the site of his announcement that he would seek a second term in office.
In other front page news, Tribune advertising manager Jack Gurewitz earned the first place award for the “best large space advertising campaign” in the New Jersey Press Association’s newspaper contest for work done in 1984. Gurewitz won the award for an ad for Mayflower Savings Bank in the contest’s weekly newspaper category.
Turnout for the school board election was the subject of Tribune publisher and editor Kit Cone’s single editorial, entitled “A Good Time for Change.”
Cone wrote, “Now that the pressure of the election is off, perhaps we can take the time to look at some much-needed changes in the system. At the start of this year’s campaign, there was an effort at the state level to organize a better voter turnout. Livingston was dropped from the program when local officials declined to permit poll checkers to ask each voter how he or she voted. The reasoning, with which we wholeheartedly agree, was that the whole purpose of the secret ballot is to remove any intimidation from just such sources as poll checkers… Without the extra support of the campaign to get out the voters, we managed a turnout of 17.9 per cent of the registered voters in Livingston. That’s better than last year, but is still deplorable. The fact is that 2,053 people who voted in favor of the budget are dictating their wishes to the remaining 16,000 or so registered voters.
“The goal is government by the people, but obviously it isn’t working. What makes these statistics even more depressing [is that] our community had one of the better turnouts in the county.”
Cone concluded, “Now that the election is over, perhaps some attention can be devoted to changes in the system that would encourage people to take an interest in their schools and their pocketbooks.”
Dan Friedman, a Livingston student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was a member of the university’s golf team that spring.
Thomas S. Villano, a senior at Livingston High School, was among five students selected to receive $3,000 scholarship awards from the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants.
A large group of Livingston residents, led by the Livingston Clergy Association, instigated plans for a “March Against Hunger” to aid famine victims in Ethiopia.
Sandra Polito of 2 Splitrock Road was named Miss Livingston Area Chamber of Commerce for 1985.
Gusta Abels of Livingston was to be one of two featured artists to exhibit work at the Doubletree Gallery in Montclair for the month of April.
The coaches of Livingston High School voted Cindy Theel and Steve Valentine as the recipients of the Army Reserve Medallion as outstanding scholar-athletes.
Lisa Moretti of Livingston was awarded the High Point Trophy for the girls’11/12 age group at the New Jersey Junior Olympic Swimming Championships.
Mike Pocher, goal tender for the 1985 Livingston High School ice hockey team, was selected by the Star-Ledger as the number one All-State Public School Goalie. Pocher had an 86% save average, stopping 451 shots out of a total 523 shots taken. In the fall, he planned to attend the New Jersey Institute of Technology and to play for the NJIT hockey team.
Lisa Amsterdam, a 1982 graduate of Livingston High School, was to star as Sally Bowles in the Pace University production of the musical “Cabaret.”
Song writer Irwin Levine of Livingston, best known for his hit song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Ole Oak Tree,” visited his daughter Kelly’s class at Heritage Junior High School. He gave a talk about song writing and the music business.
No Livingston births were announced in the Tribune this week in 1985, and just one wedding. Leslie Jackson, daughter of Patricia Jackson of 11 West Drive, became the wife of William Busold of West Orange.
