NOVEMBER 2019 FREE
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
Your vote at risk?
Ensuring Trenton’s water works
Most N.J. counties behind the times with voting booth security
New interim director discusses Sept. boil advisory and the future of TWW
By ROB AntHes
ranthes@communitynews.org
In 2004, Hopewell resident Stephanie Harris went to her polling place for the presidential primary, never expecting what was about to happen would alter her life and the public discourse around voter security for the next decade and a half. When Harris entered the privacy booth that day, she saw one of Mercer County’s then-new touchscreen voting machines facing her, a model called the Sequoia AVC Advantage. She found her candidate of choice on the large paper ballot overlay, pressed the box next to the candidate’s name and then hit a large button at the bottom right of the machine to cast her vote. Typically, at this point, the AVC Advantage will make a noise to indicate a vote has been counted. For Harris, nothing happened. Harris exited the privacy booth slightly confused. A poll worker stopped her, and said her vote didn’t register and that she should try again. Harris did, four times with the same results. After the fi fth time, the poll worker shrugged, and said, “Well, I think it worked.” Harris never received definitive confirmation her vote had been cast. To this day, she doesn’t know whether the machine recorded her vote. See VOTING, Page 6
By ROB AntHes
ranthes@communitynews.org
Veteran Charles Feggans holds his book, “Unpleasant that draws upon experiences in the Vietnam War.
It has been an eventful first few weeks on the job for Steven J. Picco. The new interim director of Trenton Water Works, Picco assumed his position Sept. 16. He dealt with his first crisis just 11 days later when a mechanical Pastures,” a fictional stor y failure caused chlorine levels in the water to drop and a boil-water advisory to be issued. TWW uses chlorine to disinfect the drinking water. The advisory lasted 30 hours, but Picco says TWW will carry the lessons learned in that twoday span for much longer. Picco replaced Dr. Shing-Fu it,” Feggans says. “Every day that goes by, you cross it off, Hsueh as head of the utility after and as you get closer to the end Hsueh resigned suddenly in you get more scared of getting early September. Trenton Mayor there. You’d hate to die during Reed Gusciora had handpicked Hsueh to correct long-standing those last few days.” Feggans recounts his vivid issues at TWW, one of the state’s memories from Vietnam with largest water utilities. While his comrades stationed in a Hsueh accomplished plenty in Marine Corps camp cut off his year on the job, he also left from the outside world in his behind plenty for Picco to handle. Picco, 71, is no stranger to second book, titled Unpleasant TWW or Mercer County. He Pastures. “I didn’t have a clue [about grew up locally, living in HamilVietnam] until I got there. As ton, Ewing and Trenton. He is a See FEGGANS, Page 14 See TWW, Page 11
Baker in a bunker Charles Feggans’ book is based on his time serving in the Vietnam War By JuliA MARnin Living or dying was not on Charles Feggans’ mind while in a Marine Corps camp during the Vietnam War, even with the constant threat of nightly rocket attacks launched by the enemy.
The Ewing resident had lost friends to these fatal attacks, some of which he morbidly calls “lucky shots,” after he witnessed the gruesome aftermath on a couple occasions where rockets somehow made it directly into a small opening of a camp bunker, killing comrades inside. “When you first get there, you have a whole year, so you don’t even think about dying. Only when you’re down to your last 30 days, when you’re given a little calendar with the days on
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