GOP has a 30-year winning streak

The ghost of Doug Romaine is being called into play again by Democrats this Morris County election season.

Thirty-three years after Romaine left office -- the last Democrat to serve as a county freeholder -- a new crop of Democratic challengers says it's time once again for two-party government in a county where the Grand Old Party has long dominated.

Four decades of one-party rule is too long, contend Democratic freeholder candidates Nancie Ludwig, Bill Weber and Megan McWilliams, who are running a low-key campaign to unseat Republican incumbents John Murphy, Gene Feyl and Bill Chegwidden.

Weber likened Morris County government to the Politburo in the former Soviet Union, where one party had total domination.

Not true, said Feyl and Chegwidden, who dismissed Weber's contention at a candidates forum last week at the Fox Hills development in Rockaway Township.

The incumbents said they run open and effective government, detailing a host of cost-cutting initiatives and programs they contend show county government has done fine in Republican hands -- except for one Watergate-era term for Democrat Romaine in the 1970s.

Feyl pointed to the county's top-ranked triple-A bond rating, a $2 million cut in the county's nearly $300 million budget, a reduction of 74 county employees without resorting to layoffs, a major restructuring of management of the county's Morris View Healthcare Center, plus cost-sharing initiatives with neighboring counties to use Morris County's youth shelter and juvenile detention center.

Yet, in the midst of cuts, the county has created a major park on the old Greystone campus in Parsippany -- land it got from the state for $1, he said.

"Moody's and Standard & Poor's ratings agencies gave the county their top bond rating,'' said Feyl, a one-time Denville mayor.

Ludwig, who is the Randolph Democratic Party chairwoman, wasn't impressed. She contended the all-GOP freeholders are complacent, saying they must push government departments to pare down programs and spending while seeking new sources of revenues.

Ludwig questioned why the county has a $72,000 budget item for employee computer training, saying that knowledge is available for free at the county library and online. She also said the county should assist its 39 municipalities in seeking state and federal grants, to help bring in new revenues.

"One-party rule is not in the best interest of the county,'' said Ludwig. "I can be your watchdog.''

Weber, of Boonton, making his first run for office, pledged to be a "change agent.'' He stressed a need for shared services.

"Shared services? I've been involved with that since long before it was a government buzzword,'' said Chegwidden, who detailed a list of shared programs he has been involved with as mayor of Wharton and county freeholder.

Wharton merged its police force with Mine Hill, shares school superintendents with Mine Hill and is part of a five-town municipal court, he said. The county, he added, has created countywide police dispatch and communications systems, is moving ahead with a countywide solar energy initiative and is exploring many other shared programs.