SEPTEMBER 2020 FREE
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Deadline latest hurdle for Census accuracy
Benedetti new chair of Ewing Dems Takes charge with Bob Dorio stepping down after 16 years
BY MICHELE ALPERIN
BY JOE EMANSKI
For the first time since 2004, the Ewing Township Democratic Committee has a new chairman. The committee voted in Carl Benedetti, Sr., as the new chair at its July reorganization meeting. Benedetti Sr. was selected without opposition. He succeeds Bob Dorio, who stepped down after 16 years as chair. Dorio has recently moved to Hamilton, where he continues to be involved in local Democratic politics. “I look forward to working with Carl Benedetti Sr. as Ewing’s new municipal Democratic chair,” Mayor Bert Steinmann said in a post to the committee Facebook page. “His energy and commitment to Ewing and the party have been evident over the last several years, and he is an excellent choice.” Along with Benedetti, the committee re-elected Mary Corrigan as vice Chair and Janelle Hill as secretary. Newly elected officer Lawrence Ganges will serve as treasurer. Benedetti had served as See CHAIR, Page 11
Ewing’s Elisa Summiel surrounded by some of her designs featured at Illustrated Melanin, a webstore created to “uplift and empower African-American women.”
Uplift, empower, aff irm A long-time Ewing resident is making a powerful statement in San Diego with a new business focused on uplifting and empowering AfricanAmerican women through illustrations and affirmations. Elisa Summiel founded Illustrated Melanin to, in her words, “celebrate our skin and the many hues that it represents.” Illustrated Melanin is a curated webstore where you can find all kinds of items prayer journals, notebooks, face masks, tote bags, posters and more that feature Summiel’s graphic designs. The 31-year-old is also a free-
lance graphic and communication design specialist through a business she founded in 2014, Elisa Michelle Designs. She moved to Los Angeles before settling in San Diego two years ago. A graduate of Lore Elementary, Fisher Middle and Ewing High School, she is the youngest child of Sara and former Ewing councilman Leslie Summiel Sr. She has two elder brothers, Les Jr., 45, and Tim, 38. The following Q&A was originally published online at sdvoyager.com. Q. Elisa, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Elisa Summiel: I think from a young age, art has always been a passion of mine. I was never a Picasso or anything, but I had an eye for design and I could not shy away from any creative outlet; It was life for me. Growing up in New Jersey, in a pretty diverse area, our school-age education of art/artists were always represented by images of a white man or woman. There were rarely any images that represented me, a Black woman. That is until I attended Hamptom University, a HBCU — Historically Black College See ILLUSTRATED, Page 6
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As we approach the finish line for the 2020 Census, enumerators in New Jersey are facing serious obstacles to achieving a fair and complete count. A shortened deadline, fewer enumerators (formerly known as census takers) than planned due to the pandemic and fears of completing the census—particularly in the Latino community—sparked by actions and words of the Trump administration, are just a few of the hurdles in the way of an accurate count. The U.S. Census, completed every 10 years, “is designed to count every resident,” to determine apportionment of seats in U.S. House of Representatives and to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities, according to census.gov. “There’s a concern from many, especially in the immigrant population, about privacy and security, especially when our current administration had, in many of our minds, been undermining the process: first, by trying to include the citizenship question, and lately by shortening the deadline,” says Princeton councilwoman Leticia Fraga, who is See CENSUS, Page 8
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