Eatontown Democrats burst GOP's 'Bubba'
Tarantolo, DaVis, Questore thank voters, look ahead to new terms
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Gerald J. Tarantolo Mayor

EATONTOWN - They're just glad it's over.

One night after a victorious Election Day, Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo and the entire six-member Borough Council, all Democrats, went right back to business at their Nov. 9 workshop and public meetings.

Though most of their talk revolved around ongoing municipal issues such as affordable housing, road repairs and new fences at Wampum Park, the memories of door-to-door campaigning that culminated in winning numbers were fresh in the minds of Tarantolo and Councilmen Charles DaVis and Joseph Questore.

On Nov. 7, the triumphant trio thwarted Republican challengers Anthony "Bubba" Gaetano, Joseph Aretino and Joseph Donato efforts to put their own party in the mayor's office and in at least one of the two open council seats.

Gaetano, a Memorial School social studies teacher who had previously run unsuccessfully for the council, had sought to take the mayor's office in this year's campaign.

Aretino, a facilities manager with a contractor based at Fort Monmouth, and Donato challenged incumbents DaVis and Questore for their seats.

In the aftermath of victory, all three newly re-elected officials thanked their supporters and their loved ones, but admitted that they are glad to get back to their lives.

In particular, Tarantolo and DaVis are especially grateful to voters for rejecting what they said were questionable claims and characterizations of the candidates made by the borough GOP in campaign literature it had circulated.

One piece of campaign literature in particular blamed Tarantolo, who as a member of the local Save Our Fort Committee, had joined with other area leaders to protect Fort Monmouth from shutdown by the Pentagon under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

Despite lobbying by Tarantolo, other nearby mayors and state officials and even U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-6) and Rush Holt (D-12), the federal BRAC Commission accepted the Pentagon's recommendation to close Fort Monmouth anyway.

The closure of the U.S. Army base and transfer of more than 4,000 civilian and military jobs to other bases, is set to be completed by September 2011.

The decision to shutter Fort Monmouth was ultimately made by forces in Washington, D.C. with local leaders having little influence in the matter, Tarantolo said.

"To imply that I was responsible for the closing of Fort Monmouth is an absolute joke," Tarantolo said in an interview last week. "I couldn't believe that [the borough GOP] would put that in a pamphlet and send it around town.

Some residents who received the GOP literature even called or e-mailed borough hall because they were offended by the party's literature and its claims about the Democrats and other residents, particularly those living in mobile home parks, Tarantolo noted.

In the end, 58 percent of the borough's 3,266 voters returned Tarantolo to a third consecutive term

Nonetheless, the mayor says he is troubled by the tactics used by Gaetano and the local Republican organization in this year's contest.

"I'm pleased with the outcome," Tarantolo said. "[But] the fact of the matter is my accomplishments were challenged by my opposition in a way that disturbed me."

Items such as helping to acquire open space, improvements to borough parks, a new rent control ordinance and initiating the proposed redevelopment of the downtown, were portrayed as detrimental to Eatontown by local GOP in its campaign literature and on its Web site, Tarantolo said.

"I've always looked at them as being positive things," Tarantolo said. "They looked at them as negative things."

In the end, Tarantolo, a retired electronics engineer, said his win shows that most borough residents did not buy into the GOP's attempts to frame him as a mayor only seeking media coverage by promoting certain initiatives.

"Their literature was unfair, inaccurate, and tended to give the illusion that I was more interested in my own well-being than in that of the borough," Tarantolo said. "I was associated as a paper mayor.

"My name might be associated with a project, but it's not about getting my name in the paper," he added.

Nonetheless, Tarantolo says he is grateful to the voters who stood behind him in spite of the negative literature distributed by the opposition, which has not had any of its members on the governing body since last December.

Like Tarantolo, DaVis also garnered his third term by taking more than 28 percent of the total votes cast among the four eligible candidates.

A retired Eatontown police officer and presently that department's police commissioner, DaVis was the front-runner in the Nov. 7 contest.

DaVis agrees with Tarantolo that the GOP's campaign reeked of negativity and deception.

"I'd like to thank the residents for seeing the facts for what they were and disregarding the obvious untruths," DaVis said in an interview the following night.

["Residents] trust us to do the job under the present administration and we're doing our very best for the community," he added.

Questore, who has been filling the last year of the unexpired term of former councilman Charles Riddle, will begin his first full, three-year term in January.

Post-election, Questore, an information technology manager for Cisco Systems in Wall, thanked the voters and indicated that he looks forward to hearing their input on borough issues.

Tarantolo, DaVis and Questore will all be sworn to their new terms at the council's annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 1.