Ringwood Democratic leader files complaint over GOP poll

Thursday, December 18, 2003
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER

RINGWOOD - A Republican poll of local voters during the hotly contested Borough Council race may be getting state scrutiny.

A Democratic complaint has been filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission over a poll arranged by the GOP campaign manager, whose slate nevertheless lost the race for four seats in a historic upset in November.

The complaint was filed by Richard Falco, the borough Democratic leader, when he could find nothing in Republican campaign reports to the state agency as to who was hired to do the poll.

Antonio Torchia, the Republican campaign treasurer and one of the defeated candidates, said Wednesday that he listed a $2,300 in-kind contribution by Councilman Scott Heck, the borough Republican leader, for polling.

Torchia, an accountant, said the campaign report, filed just after the Nov. 4 election, did not require a listing of who did the polling, only that an in-kind contribution was made.

"There was a report, and I saw the report," he said of the poll. "Therefore I felt the campaign did have some benefit from that report."

Heck said he didn't think a detailed campaign report on the poll was required, because he didn't do the direct survey on behalf of the candidates.

As to why he undertook the poll, he said that "as Republican leader in town, I felt I needed to get a pulse on a couple of issues in town and I did that."

Heck, who had recently become the local party's leader, said he hired professional pollsters from outside the area to survey voters' concerns. He said the poll was not designed to project the likely outcome of the election. In the end, the voting left his party in the minority on a council that Republicans dominated for decades.

An Election Law Enforcement Commission official, Nedda Massar, said this week that the agency's policy is to neither confirm nor deny any investigation. But, she added: "In general, if it's an in-kind contribution, it has to be reported both as a contribution and as an expenditure."

Democrats first questioned in July who was behind the poll, after many residents said they received calls from parties who would not identify themselves but asked their opinions of Skylands CLEAN, the local environmental group, and what they saw as major issues in town. The Democratic candidates included a Skylands CLEAN leader and three supporters of the activist group.

"We want to know, Who did they hire?" Falco said this week. "If it was somebody local involved, were they involved in the Chamber [of Commerce] debate committee?" Falco said he was concerned that a chamber-sponsored debate among the candidates shortly before the election could have been manipulated to favor Republicans.

As it turned out, the Democrats did well in the debate, he said, and won all four open seats, gaining a council majority. Even so, Falco said, he believes state election law requires this information to be reported, so that potential conflicts of interest are revealed.

Ironically, Falco noted, Democrats won despite being the target of the poll and despite being outspent by the Republicans. According to reports to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, the Republican campaign spent $27,518 to $22,155 by the Democrats.

E-mail: barry@northjersey.com

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