While we are still in the dog days of August, fall is not far away, and with it comes another round of Board of Education and Township Council elections in Livingston. These are both contested elections; now that the filing deadlines have passed, we know there will be 11 candidates running for various seats.Four people are running to fill two open seats on the Board of Education. Those candidates are incumbent Seth Cohen, as well as newcomers Adriana Bordoni, Parul Khemka, and Marjorie Wang. Board member Sam Messer, whose term is expiring at the end of the year, will not be seeking reelection to the Board, but instead will be one of seven candidates running for three open seats on the Township Council.Running on the Democratic ticket for Township Council are incumbent Mayor Ed Meinhardt, incumbent Council member Shawn Klein, and Rosy Bagolie. Council member Rudy Fernandez, a Democrat whose term expires at the end of the year, will not be seeking reelection. Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt, Michael Livi, and Rus Milov are running for the seats on the Republican ticket. Messer is running for the Council as an independent.We are less than three months away from voting, so we expect to hear a lot more from each these candidates as we approach Election Day. As we get closer and campaigns begin to gear up, we hope for an election season marked by civil discourse and respect.We’ll be doing our part to foster that dialogue here at the West Essex Tribune. Starting on September 22, as we always do for contested races, in conjunction with the League of Women Voters, we will pose questions for the candidates to answer. These questions and their responses will be printed each week in the paper, leading up to the general election. Candidate responses should help readers to learn what those running would bring to the table as a Board or Council member. Candidates will also have the opportunity to make a final statement, on any topic they wish, in the issue prior to the election.We also anticipate receiving Letters to the Editor related to the upcoming elections. Any letters supporting a candidate will be considered an endorsement; we run excerpts of all endorsement letters, as space permits, in the last edition of the Tribune prior to the election. This year, that issue will fall on November 3. This also applies for any letters speaking negatively ...
