Freeholders rarely clash on votes

BRIDGETON - Some critics of Cumberland County's current freeholder board have pointed out a lack of diversity in its voting record as a negative.

Statistics released last week by the Cumberland County Democratic organization show that the county freeholders - both past and present - rarely clash in voting on resolutions.

A report by Louis J. Magazzu, master's student and son of current freeholder director and candidate Lou Magazzu, looked at three recent years of voting statistics by the county freeholder board.

Those years are 1999, 2002 and 2008.

In those three years, in which two of the freeholder boards were controlled by Democrats, at least 98 percent of resolutions passed without dissent.

In 1999, out of 741 resolutions and three ordinances, only three resolutions failed to receive a unanimous pass.

The all-Democrat freeholder board in 1999 consisted of Freeholder Director Doug Fisher, Magazzu, Jennifer Swift, Bruce Peterson, Chuck Griffiths, Donna Pearson and Robert Smith.

In 2008, with Jeff Trout as the lone Republican freeholder on the board, there were 751 resolutions and five ordinances introduced. Out of that number, there were 11 no votes recorded on eight resolutions and two ordinance readings.

Only one of the no votes came from Trout.

The most dissent came in 2002, the most recent year Republicans had control of the county freeholder board.

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