My impression is that Mayor Stahl is a conservative Democrat and Mr. Hughes a middle of the road Republican. Personally, they fit my ideal for common sense officials that can agree on what is right for East Brunswick and they both have my continued support.

Abby you make a better pizza salesmen then a complainer.... stick with the pizza please !

I think Mayor Stahl handled the storm very well. If you follow him on any social media such as Twitter, you would have seen him answering residents questions or concerns throughout the storm. Some towns in our area are still without power. Stahl worked hard in a very difficult situation. I am happy Kevin McEvoy, a retired teacher, will be serving on the school board.

Congrats to the incumbents, they do great work.

And to the township curmudgeon, Abby, mr. Hughes is the only republican I'd even vote for. It's no secret stahl is grooming him to take over. Just ask all the frustrated democrats in town.

It is sad, that EB residents do not recognize, how mayor Stahl is leading them nowhere.....they voted for more of nothing. Did you see rt 18 lately? From our once rich and prospering town is nothing left, just the taxes. Shame on you people!!!

mayor stahl seems to take credit for getting power back on not a word of thanks to those lineworkers who actually did the work

Lots to comment on and some observations.....

Agreed that Stahl and the Town Council need to wake up and smell the coffee about EB heading south. Now that the election is over perhaps they can stop spinning the numbers and the rhetoric about “vacancy rate is down” and admit we have a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.
Unfortunately they don’t have control over business failing or how they are run. What they do have control over is realizing that we need to find a way to attract investment by small and large businesses in EB. Not as easy task given the trajectory we are moving in. Don't get me started about Walmart...what is done is done and there is nothing we can do about it. Again they need to stop the rhetoric about it being " a good thing" and admit we got screwed and start planning for all the bad things to come from this by being proactive now and setting as many controls in place as possible. They need to take their collective heads out of the sand and realize that this is going to effect our quality of life in ways they have not considered. Perhaps they need to ask for help and ideas as opposed to thinking they can go it alone. While smart I am sure they don’t have all the answers.

That said they were/are the better choice compared to the other candidate who wanted to turn the Golden Triangle into a “Tourist Attraction”. C’mon are you serious?
More to come…..

Oh..and I would suggest we rename the Golden Triangle debacle to something more appropriate. Perhaps “ The Bermuda Triangle” also known as the Devil's Triangle where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. This would better reflect the history and goings on with this project…don’t you agree?

For all you "negative" people, try running East Brunswick or anything for that matter. It's a thankless job, unfortunately. I think Mayor Stahl has done an excellent job in bringing Retailers back in our area as best he can in this economy. He cannot control "mother nature" or the Power companies. He never stopped communicating with the community regarding the situation of the storm or aftermath. I'm looking forward to the next four year with you!

Sherri- Give up the "rah rah sis boom bah" and face the facts..My posts are not negative...they are reality like it or not. So what retailers are you referring to that Mayor Stahl brought to EB lately? Re-read my earlier post...this is not an attack on him as he has not control over how a businessman/woman runs their business but face the facts....

continued...now is the time to be a visionary not a reactionary. We need a creative strategy to get us past the mess we are in. I am not saying I have all the answers because I don't but acknowledging there is a problem is the ONLY path to solving it.

Ed T..right how could have I forgotten about those bong shops..I stand corrected.

todays home news interviewed newly re elected mayors. guess who did not return their phone call. our mayor stahl. as a result the town of eb received no information from mr. stahl. he must not be sleeping in eb if the press cannot get ahold of him. i presume he will be missing in action the next 4 years

Hey Petra speak for your self and your poeple. All the years iv been in this town iv never heard more STUIPD comments from one group of people. If its so damm bad here GO BACK !!!! This town don't need you

Hi Stan, why the insults? I guess you must feel STUPID, that you voted for mayor Stahl an his people, since my comments bother you so much. What group of people do you mean anyway? The group of people who care and realize, this town goes down the hill? And where are you sending me back to? What makes you to be so angry with others? Maybe you are upset with yourself that now its too late to change yor vote ? :-) just joking, no insults. What I'm trying to say is, that I live in this town for some time and pay the ever growing taxes, and have the RIGHT to speak about things that concern me. As for mayor Stahl.....if he was good for my town, I really don't care what party he belongs to. It is just that I have seen our town going down the hill in last four years, and now I think is the time to speak up. Maybe you and me can get together and bring our problems to the mayor and make him do something about it and not just sit in the office for another 4 years doing nothing. You make like living in the town,and believe me, I do too. It just could be much better, like it used to be years ago.I just guarantee you, we all could live much better.
Regards, Petra

Congrats Mr Stahl...I hope your a better mayor then attorney for Middlesex County Consumer Affairs. I know of alot of people you failed miserably because you were out right LAZY.

Although I have a ton to say, I'm simply going to comment on two topics. The town can NOT keep a business from doing business here in EB. If they meet all of the zoning requirements, eg., fire code, health code, building code, there is nothing the Administration can do to keep them out, it is simply illegal. The best way to get them out is to not patronize them. As to the way the storm was handled, both Mayor Stahl, Councilwoman Contrino and EBPD Deputy Chief Krause attempted to keep the town informed via social media and by phone sending out hourly updates on the power and cleanup situation. Most trees and debris were cleaned up from Township streets within 2 days after the storm making for passable thoroughfares faster than our surrounding Towns. Trees that were on downed power lines are NOT able to be touched by the town, but must be cleaned up by the power companies. In the days that have passed everyone from NY Governor Cuomo, to Governor Christie, Mayor Bloomberg, to our own Mayor Stahl has admonished the power companies. We will see if there is any change to our utilities, but again that is the responsibility of the BPU, NOT our Township Administration.

The town can not keep business from doing business in our town, you are right there Butch. But I'm sure they can do plenty to attract better business than is here. The Home Depot building sitting there for six years empty is really killing me. And not just that...closed gas station, closed NEW restorants and other stores, that I don't need to name anymore really show, how business went down the hill in EB. As for mayor Stahl and his people .....being on TV really did not help me, when I did not have any power to watch the tv or access the Internet. I did not even see anybody from the town observing the situation here after the storm.....that would really make me believe in them. Mr. Stahl and Mrs. Pinking just always show their faces here right before elections. I guess the storm pooped on it this year, since i dint see them here at all. As for the clean up.....I just wanted to say .....there is still fallen town tree in front of my house, that was not cleaned up and taken away. It is blocking half of the street and causes much danger to all the people here, especially at night, since most of the lamps on the street are not lit. Who would be responsible for anyone's injury? I would hold Mr. David Stahl Esq. responsible for that, wouldn't you?

Butch you are correct about private property owners leasing their commercial buildings to anyone, however, walmart is not the case. The original plan was for smaller shops sort of like those in North Brunswick. Under Mayor Stahl the plan was revised specifically to meet Walmart through the developer JM EB Urban Zone. Keep in mind it is the same developer along with Toll Brothers that had both of their hands in the revision. Mayor Stahl may have kept in contact with residents through twitter, however, he has less than 200 followers. That is not keeping in touch with affected residents. He should have returned the calls from the Home News Tribune to use as a tool in keeping in touch with more residents. The few times myself or friends had to use the high school for warmth and charging, only one was there and that was Councilwoman Pinkin. I have no idea how Councilwoman Contrino stayed in touch since internet was not available.

oops correction to followers on twitter. it is 62

@ Jean- The way Ms. Contrino was able to post was through a smartphone which uses cell technology and does not require a wifi connection. Kudos to her for doing the best she could to keep us all informed despite her personal challenges.

not all have smart phones nor cell phone service at the time. was still a limited number of residents so did not keep us all informed.

Jean..not sure what you are trying to say perhaps using full intelligible sentences would help. You wrote above "I have no idea how Councilwoman Contrino stayed in touch since internet was not available." which indicated you were trying to understand how she was able to stay connected to gain information and pass it on as best she could (which she did) even without power. So what are you trying to say??? She was or was not doing her job?????

Norman, are you working for Mrs. Contrino or the others, that you are defending them so much? I don't mean to insult you, I'm just curious. Please, do not criticize Jean for incorrect wording of her sentence, you know very well, what she means. Just to let everybody know, even some people with smart phones were without service. Sprint was totally out and when you phone finally reached the signal by roaming, you got Verizon, where they asked you for your credit card. I have a beef with Verizon for taking an advantage of people during crisis, not with the town, though. I am just trying to say i did not have direct connection to TV, Internet or phone and I'm sure many others were in the same situation. I can't even imagine, how the older citizens must have feel without any information, being cold, scared and in the dark.

I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I have Verizon and I was able to get all the updates that Mayor Stahl posted on Twitter and Councilwoman Contrino posted on Facebook (she actually did a superb job!). I also received the Nixle alerts and the Global Connect calls from the Township since I registered by cell phone with them. How do you suggest that they should have handled this differently? If residents don't register their phone # on the EB website to get the Global Connect calls, how is the Township supposed to know their phone #? They certainly can't go door-to-door to notify residents!

Petra- No insult taken and no worries First -no I do not work for them and believe I have done a fine job of presenting myself as a someone who can see all sides to the issues.
In fact if you scroll up and read my earlier posts you should see that in fact I have taken them to task for the Golden Triangle as well as the state of affairs of business on Rt 18. Please tell me if you read it differently.

Thanks for your explanation of Jean's post...I actually did not get that from her post but that is not really important I too was in the dark for a week like many of us with "spotty" cell service which at times provided some minimal internet connection but was mostly out of touch. All I was trying to say was that Contrino made an effort....good bad.

Unfortunately, I had a job to work at so was not able to respond till now. The communication of the officials of this township could have been better descriminated if the Mayor had returned the calls to the Home News Tribune. There are many of us who do not have facebook, and twitter accounts. There are also many who do not have data plans on their cell phones.

Petra - I'm sorry but I completely disagree with your "solution". The police department was insanely busy dealing with emergent issues as were the VOLUNTEERS from the fire department and VOLUNTEERS from the rescue squad. Some of these VOLUNTEERS actually took off of work from their real "paying" job so that they could respond to emergent issues in town during the aftermath of the Hurricane as a VOLUNTEER. To suggest that they should go door-to-door to deliver paper notices to residents is just absolutely ridiculous!!

Jean ~ do you REALLY think that by the Mayor responding to a request from a newspaper reporter for a "quote" that this would have solved communication issues? Seriously??? EB did a MUCH better job than surrounding towns! ALL of you should STOP complaining and be thankful that you still have a home and your loved ones and did not lose it ALL like some residents in Sayreville, down the shore or in New York.