Election

Five candidates raised and spent more than $4,500 in last month's Pennsbury school board primary election, according to campaign reports filed last week with the Bucks County Board of Election. The five candidates - Gene Dolnick, Marilee Gillespie, Arlene Gordon, Alan Horowitz and Hoyt Phillips - reported spending a total of $4,869.80 in their campaigns. Gillespie, a Falls resident seeking to unseat incumbent Phillips in Region 3, spent the most - $1,777.11. Five individuals contributed $100 or more to Gillespie's campaign, and two of them contributed $250 or more.

The relative calm of Tuesday's primary belied what will likely be the most raucous and expensive November legislative election ever in New Jersey. The election, with the entire Senate and Assembly up for grabs, will finally let the voters make their judgment on the Democratic-controlled legislature's passage of Gov. Florio's $2.8 billion tax package last year. Republicans, who have not held the majority in the 40-seat Senate since 1973 and who lost control of the 80-seat Assembly in 1989, are banking on voter anger to oust the Democrats.

The honorable George W. Bush recently was tripping his tax-cut fantastic before Floridians, designed to get local TV coverage to put pressure on Florida's U.S. senators to get behind the $1.6 trillion giveback. Bush was pandering in the Florida Panhandle only a day after a report from the Palm Beach Post that had the voters of Palm Beach County cast their ballots correctly, Al Gore would be the current president. Bush Lite had to comment, and he did so obliquely, suggesting that it was time to get over the vote.

Few politicians seem ready to call for the heads of the two Democratic city commissioners, despite a scorching condemnation of them by a federal judge. Even Republicans, like party leader Bill Meehan are cautious. "The commissioners have a tough job, and I've always found them to be pretty fair," Meehan said yesterday. Meehan said he wasn't worried about the commissioners handling the May 10 primary election. "We'll make sure they run it fair. " Fairness might be a serious concern, if you believe Judge Clarence Newcomer, who last week reversed Bill Stinson's narrow win over Republican Bruce Marks in the state 2nd Senatorial District election.

Since the Democrats wrested control of the Camden County Freeholder Board in 1972, both parties have been rocked by political developments. Come and gone are the Watergate scandal, which devastated the GOP nationally, and the two landslide election victories of Ronald Reagan, which staggered the Democrats. The last 17 years have also seen the rise of U.S. Rep. James J. Florio as head of the Camden County party in the bitter internal feud of 1979, the conviction of powerful Camden Mayor Angelo Errichetti as part of the Abscam probe and the mysterious disappearance of county Democratic chief James E. Joyce, supposedly in a 1980 airplane crash.

A recount will be made tomorrow in Pennsauken's school board elections, in which one candidate lost by nine votes last month. Incumbent Bernhard Kofoet, the third-highest vote-getter, won a three-year term with 793 votes, according to results the township released. Kathy Andrews-Williams finished in fourth place with 784 votes. Three seats were open. A local group, Pennsauken for Change, filed for an official recount of votes in the April 21 election. "The citizens are asking that the officials be definitively certain that the numbers are correct," said Michael Stargell, head of the group and a longtime school board member who did not seek reelection this year.

It's that time of year again. The candidates' handlers are arguing over debate formats and invitees. (Next, it'll be the size of the podiums and the shape of the water glasses.) The slick, acidic political ads are washing over the airways. Headlines and newscasts are full of sound bites, promises and policy nostrums. If you're a D-Day vet or a baby boomer, you've seen it all before. But if you're a third-, or sixth- or 11th-grader, this may be the first time you've really paid attention.

As if all this bargaining over the fate of the 76ers and the Flyers weren't complicated enough, now there looms another pesky wrinkle. Politics. On Nov. 7, voters in New Jersey will choose a new governor and voters in Philadelphia will elect their district attorney and controller. The elections, according to politicians and participants in the sports-team talks, are a factor in the jostling over whether Philadelphia's basketball and hockey clubs will play future home games in a new arena in South Philadelphia or on the Camden riverfront.

WITH THE election over, we might want to think about the lessons learned for the children in our city, and plan the elements of a children's agenda for the next four years. I am the former director of children's policy for the city under Mayor Street. I was fortunate to be a part of the group who helped shape the current Children's Investment Strategy. CIS has resulted in many new after-school programs for youngsters, as well as an expansion of other initiatives serving vulnerable families.

Voters in the Wissahickon School District will no longer be able to elect school board members representing only Ambler Borough or Whitpain or Lower Gwynedd Townships, the municipalities served by the district. Board members approved a new method of electing nine board members, but not the arrangement that was the first choice of the community task force studying board reorganization. Board solicitor Michael O. Peale informed board members at a special meeting Wednesday night that the task force's recommendation to elect six members at-large and one from each municipality "may be constitutionally deficient.