MOUNT OLIVE (12/27/06) – If it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it.

That would seem to have been the thinking of the township Republican caucus on the leadership of the governing body when they agreed recently to re-elect the current Council President Rob Greenbaum next year.

The election and appointments will be made when the Council re-organizes on Tuesday in the Township Hall at 7:30 p.m. Mayor David Scapicchio also will give his first "State of the Township" address at that meeting.

Greenbaum has been the Council President for two years and after the caucus with six of the seven council members being Republican it appeared that Greenbaum would be nominated and re-elected for an unprecedented third one year term in that office.

"He runs the meetings well and after the problems with the last mayor (former Mayor Richard DeLaRoche) we have a lot of catching up to do," said Councilman Steve Rattner who will be re-nominated to continue as vice president of the council. "There still are a lot of issues to resolve and Rob has shown he’s on top of all of them," Rattner said. He added that he also "has a lot on his own plate" at this time.

The newly elected mayor, David Scapicchio, was happy with the outcome of the meeting as well. "Rob has done a great job during nearly three trying years for him and for the township. He added that to his knowledge no other councilman has served three successive terms in that office.

The Council President runs the council meetings, supervises the meeting agenda, has the most to say about issues and is the main spokesperson for the governing body. In his case, Greenbaum, for the past three years, was the main council spokesperson trying to win from DeLaRoche accountability for Administration responsibilities….most times to no avail, being left instead to prevail on the business manager to get responses from the mayor on important issues. DeLaRoche attended only two meetings this year until he was impeached last month.

"I think Rob is an excellent choice," Scapicchio said. "We have an excellent rapport, we’ve known each other for years, served on the Council together and we have an excellent working relationship. We communicate regularly, nearly every day. He is helping me to be productive and I believe it’s a mutually productive relationship. It’s good for the township"

Scapicchio, who also serves as the township Republican chairman, said he believes his party will have an uncontested Republican primary next year and he expects to run for a full four year term.

In addition to the mayoralty election three council seats are up. The three seats were won by Democrats who swept in the 2003 election with DeLaRoche.

The only one of the three Democrats left is Councilman James Buell, who opposed DeLaRoche almost from the outset and was active in the two recall movements to oust him; Councilwoman Colleen Labow was another one of the Democrats but changed parties to Republican during her on-going hostilities with DeLaRoche and John J. Biondi, a Republican who was elected last year to fill the last year of the term won by Democrat Bob Elms who resigned in the first year to accept employment out of the country.

Scapicchio said he believes the third Republican on the Council ticket will be Philip Tobey who has served on several boards and committees in the township.