Voters have to wait to vent frustration

If Jackson residents who have been seriously impacted by an infestation of gypsy moth caterpillars and gypsy moths this year want to express their frustration with local officials in a meaningful way, they will have to wait until May 2008 to do so.

That is the next time there will be a municipal election held in Jackson.

In May 2008, the Township Council seats presently held by Jason Gudaitis, Emily Ingram and Angelo Stallone will be on the ballot. None of the three have yet announced whether they will seek re-election.

The mayor's seat held by Mark Seda and the council seats held by Scott Martin and Ann Updegrave will not be on the ballot until May 2010.

Residents who are exasperated with Seda for any reason will have to sit on their frustration for another three years. If Seda chooses not to run for re-election those residents will have to be content with the fact that he will not serve another four years.

It has probably been a long time since something as small as a caterpillar has caused such a big commotion in Jackson. As has been documented here over the past few weeks, a good number of residents bore the brunt of a gypsy moth caterpillar infestation this year, which defoliated many trees in the community.

The caterpillars were the first stage in a gypsy moth infestation that has plagued Jackson. Seda and the members of the council have been harshly criticized by some residents, who were angered by the fact that local officials chose not to participate in an aerial spraying program that could have helped to combat the caterpillar infestation.

Jackson officials have said the aerial spraying would not have covered the entire township and would have added some costs to the tax bill of every property owner. They said they made the decision not to participate in the aerial spraying program based on the information they had at the time a decision was required.

In letters to local newspapers and at council meetings, residents who have been the most negatively impacted by the caterpillars and the gypsy moths expressed frustration about what they said was a poor decision by their elected officials not to allow aerial spraying to occur.

It is unclear if residents who have not been as negatively impacted share their neighbors' outrage. After all, not everyone wants to pay a tax assessment for a service that does not benefit them directly. Some people might even ask when it became a government's job to address problems on private property.

A municipal election in May has only been held once before in Jackson under the present mayor-council form of government that was established in 2006.

In May 2006, Seda was elected mayor in a three-way race in which he received 3,678 votes and outdistanced Michael Kafton, who received 3,113 votes, and Sean Giblin, who received 2,251 votes. There are approximately 30,000 registered voters in the township.

In recent weeks, Kafton has been a public critic of the way Seda and the council have handled the gypsy moth situation. Kafton has managed to keep his name in the news and in the minds of Jackson residents without the benefit of holding elected office. He appears to have put himself in a position to run for office next year.

In fact, just about every letter to the editor that comes into the Tri-Town News mentions Kafton and praises him for taking on the mayor and council in the gypsy moth brouhaha. A cynical person might wonder how it happens that almost every resident in Jackson who is moved to fax a letter to the editor mentions Kafton, an unelected individual, and uses exactly the same typographical format in just about every letter.

Upon his election as mayor in 2006, Seda said that "moving forward from here on out, we're going to work as hard as we can to clean up the mess."

He was talking about Jackson politics, of course, but many people wish he had been talking about the caterpillars that made their lives miserable for weeks and cost them hundreds of dollars in private extermination fees.

Unless officials change their minds and decide to participate in the aerial spraying program next year and in subsequent years, the residents who are irate will have to live with their frustration until the next time they step into a voting booth and cast their ballots for the mayor and council members in Jackson.