The general election took place exactly a month ago Thursday, but campaigning for the 2013 councilman race appeared to be off and running at Tuesday's Township Council meeting.

During the session's public comment portion, Democrat Tom Wyka, who ran unsuccessfully against three of the sitting council members in the Nov. 8 election, started the exchange.

Wyka praised an affordable housing program discussed at the Nov. 29 council meeting. Under the plan, which will come before the body in the near future as a resolution for formal approval,  Community Hope, a Parsippany nonprofit that serves homeless veterans would receive $170,000 from the town's municipal housing fund to purchase a two-unit home to serve as affordable housing for vets. 

Then, he mentioned that he was upset by a council member's statement.

"During that discussion, a member of the council decided to cynically grandstand and discuss the program in terms of 'social engineering at its finest' and then proceeded to vote against it out of principle," Wyka said. "I am not asking for an apology or a reversal. ... I wouldn't ask someone to go against their principles, whatever they decide they are."

Wyka asked that more sensitivity be shown to "marginalized people in our society," including "those who risk their lives fighting for the security of this country."

He also asked why councilmen Cesaro, Paul Carifi Jr. and Brian Stanton voted against golf user fee hikes at the Knoll Country Club and wondered, without raising prices, how the club's $300,000 deficit will be managed.

Each offered a variation of the same explanation: The councilmen said they could not, in good conscience, approve the measure when they had questions regarding the Knoll Club shortfall. All three said that if their questions are answered, they will give the matter another look.

Finally, Wyka brought up what he cast as Mayor James Barberio's failure to follow through on a 2009 campaign promise to establish economic development advisory committee.

"Last time I asked, the mayor said he was getting to it, but in effect he has become the economic development advisory committee," he said.

Wyka finished by expressing relief that the township was looking for a new insurance company for its employees. The citizen-activist is a longtime and outspoken opponent of the town's current relationship with the Morris County Joint Insurance Fund, approved in 2008 even though the fund cost $750,000 more than the lowest bidder, Travelers Insurance. (Council President Michael dePierro explained that MCJIF got the nod because it offered a three-year plan, while Travelers' was only for one year.)

"In my opinion, it was the most egregious violation in the town's recent history since our former mayor went to jail for an amount less than one-fiftieth of what was blown in the first year of the purchase of the MCJIF policy," he said. "As far as I am concerned, anyone involved in that decision... their political career should have been over that night."

Wyka referred to the 1994 conviction of 12-year mayor Frank Priore on 20 counts of mail fraud, bribery, extortion and obstruction of justice after allegedly taking $5,100 from the township's dental plan.

The former council candidate also brought up how he and Municipal Alliance Committee Chairwoman Annelise Catanzaro had been appointed to serve on the town's economic development committee only to be removed before being allowed to get to work. To date, the committee has not been active.

Cesaro, who made the "social engineering" comment on Nov. 29, responded first by announcing his run for re-election via an implied statement.

"I already know who my opponent is in the next election," he said to Wyka. "I did vote for the funding regarding the group home. I care all about society's people, in particular veterans. ... I'm not going to grandstand about what I do for people in my free time, but I did support it."

In a videotape of the Nov. 29 meeting, Cesaro, in the straw poll on the Community Hope project, voted no "on principle" against the group home and stated that he was making a gesture to show his opposition to the so-called "social engineering" of Council On Affordable Housing credits, which are used by the Department of Community Affairs to make sure low- and moderately-priced housing is integrated fairly throughout communities. 

Cesaro admitted making the statement and stood by it.

"COAH is social engineering," he asserted. "For you to say or imply that I don't care about society's less fortunate... I'm sorry, Tom, but you're going to have to come up with some real issues and not just namecalling, especially when you're going to run against me next time." 

Barberio went next and spoke directly to the dismissals of Wyka and Catanzaro.

"In the last two weeks of December [2009], a lame duck mayor put you and Annelise Catanzaro" on the economic development committee, the mayor said, noting that he already had a plan in mind to get "qualified" economic development experts to serve on the panel.

"Instead, I get hit on Dec. 22. When I saw your resume, ... I felt the mayor should have let me do the appointments. That's very frustrating when you want to run a committee a certain way, considering the mayor is economic development in this township," Barberio told Wyka.

"I know you want to come up and take shots at us, but you were a lame duck appointment. Bottom line. I would never have appointed you. Nor would I have appointed Annelise Catanzaro. No disrespect to either one of you, but that's the facts."

Later in the public portion of the meeting, resident Pat Petaccia stood and chided the mayor for his statements to Wyka.

"If I get attacked, I'm going to attack back," Barberio asserted.