Current Bordentown
OCTOBER 2019 FREE
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
80 years of unity
Fieldsboro hosts lone contested election
Bordentown’s Jacksonville Community Center celebrates milestone year
by Samantha SCiarrotta
by Julia marnin Situated in Bordentown is Jacksonville, a small community with a lot of love for the little town. And in the town is the Jacksonville Community Center, a local gathering place celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. The center has long been a place where residents have been gathering for decades of dances, holiday parties, family reunions, weddings, bridal showers and other life milestones. It will be celebrating its 80th year of operation in October after years of continual success and hard work from committed volunteers, aiming to bring townspeople together. The anniversary dinner will be held Oct. 20. “I thought we deserve to have a little celebration,” said Judy Branin, the president of the center. “It took a lot of people to help, you need a lot to pull together. There’s people that have dedicated themselves to the center. They help out with different things like yard work. The neighbors chip in when someone can't, like mowing the grass, so it's totally been a volunteer job.” Volunteers help out at the center year-round. On the first Sunday of each month, the center holds a breakfast buffet for the community with an assortment of home-cooked dishes See JACKSONVILLE, Page 5
Who ya gonna call? Neil Laswell of Bordentown entered the city’s annual Halloween house decorating contest with a Ghostbusters theme in 2016. This year, he’ll be judging the competition.
Family-friendly scares haunt city Annual house decorating and scarecrow contests set for October by Samantha SCiarrotta Bordentown’s Halloween parade has been one of the city’s most enduring seasonal traditions—it’s been a constant for over 70 years—but more recent additions have garnered even more local fans. Parade organizers also host house decorating and scarecrow contests for homes and businesses in town, and the competitions have become just as well-loved as the parade. The house decorating contest is about 15 years
old, while the scarecrow contest started around 2014. “People plan for a whole year,” committee chairperson Katy McGowan said. “A family on Brooks Avenue has a list for the next 10 years. Our participants will do a little bit throughout the year—picking things up, doing a trash dive on a Sunday night or grabbing something in a store. They shop around and build so by the first week of October, they’re ready to be decorating.” That Brooks Avenue family is the Laswells—Neil, Jen and their son. They started decorating “very cautiously” in 2011, shortly after they moved to the city. “We weren’t sure if Bordentown was a ‘Halloween town,’” Neil said. “But then we
saw Thompson Street, so we decided to go gung ho in 2012.” Laswell said he loves Bordentown City year-round, but the town’s dedication to Halloween is one of his favorite things about city life. “To be a part of it is tremendous,” he said. “To contribute in another way that other people can enjoy, that’s the best part.” The Laswells won their first contest in 2014 with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Laswell said he and Jen will keep track of any ideas throughout the year. They try to keep everything as family-friendly as possible but plan on going scarier as local kids get older. “There are certain things, like 80s horror, that we’re interested in, but we don’t want to See HALLOWEEN, Page 10
There are three Bordentown-area municipal races set for election day Nov. 5, but only one is contested. Richard Lynch, Magan Salvaggio and Rosemarie Weaver are all up for two seats on the Fieldsboro council. In Bordentown Township, Eugene Fuzy is running unopposed for a committee seat. There are three candidates running for three township seats on the Bordentown Regional Board of Education: incumbents Howard Barman and Stephen Heberling, and Erika Worthy. No Bordentown City or Fieldsboro seats are up for election this year. There are also a number of state and county races slated for November. Four candidates are running for Burlington County Sheriff: Anthony Basantis, Michael Ditzel, Erik D. Johnson and Robert Shapiro. Four candidates are up for two state assembly seats: incumbent Herb Conaway, Kathleen Cooley, Peter H. Miller and incumbent Carol Murphy. Linda Hynes and incumbent Latham Tiver will face off for one county freeholder seat. There is also one two-year unexpired term up for grabs, and two candidates are running: incumbent Daniel J. O’Connell and Lee Schneider. The Bordentown Current sent questionnaires to all municipal candidates. Their biographies and responses start on Page 6.
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