After Defeat, Ed Borden Doesn't Plan to Run Again for Elected Office

Moments after a stinging defeat Tuesday in a bid for a third term on the Haddonfield Board of Commissioners, Ed Borden said he would not run for elected office again.

"I did this out of a desire to serve the town; the voters decided they wanted to go in a different direction. I accept that and I'm going," said Borden, 64, a practicing attorney and former Camden County prosecutor, the chief law enforcement officer in the county.

Borden was a borough school board member for five years before being elected to the three-member Board of Commissioners in 2005. He finished second out of four candidates for three commissioner seats in 2009, behind Tish Colombi. Colombi, the only woman ever elected to borough government in the 300-year history of the town, decided not to run for re-election this year after 28 years on the commission.

Some voters said Borden and Colombi were part of the problem in the borough.

"We want people who are more conservative with our money," said Arlene Stolarick, 69, a retired nurse after she voted at the Lutheran Church on Wayne Avenue on Tuesday. "We drive around on streets with pot holes and you feel like you're on a roller coaster, and yet there's a certain element of people who want a turf field for $500,000. We just want to be able to afford to live here."

The commissioners approved a plan last May to install artificial turf on the high school stadium field and an adjacent practice field owned by the borough. Private donors raised $600,000 of the just over $1 million cost for the project, with the borough kicking in nearly $300,000 and the school board about $150,000.

Another planned turf field was rejected by voters in a January referendum for a $12.5 million public purchase of the Bancroft property by the school board. Supporters of the measure saw it as an oasis for future school expansion, more athletic fields and the preservation of open space. Opponents painted the purchase as ill-conceived and overpriced.

"The Bancroft issue was important in our mind" Arlene's husband, Michael Stolarick, said. "That issue was totally mishandled."

Borden, an ardent supporter of the Bancroft purchase, said he thinks many were misled about the initiative.

"People were absolutely misled about many factors of it and accepted misinformation from opponents of the initiatives," he said.

But the Solaricks maintain a change was needed in borough government.

"I think we need new blood in there," Arlene said.

"A different way of thinking," her husband agreed.

It was not immediately clear whether they'll get what they want from the outcome of the election. The results brought a mixture of old and new faces.

Incumbent Jeff Kasko, 48, a state Department of Health official; former commissioner Neal Rochford, 53, an insurance salesman; and John Moscatelli, 44, a former corporate engineer and now stay-at-home dad, finished atop a field of six candidates, including Borden.