Local town council candidates interviewed by The Gazette
Page 4 • Wednesday, October 30, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette
COUNCIL, from Page 1
Rocco “Rick” Fichetola
rocco “rick” fichetola (r) will
be seeking a seat on town council
for the first time on November 5.
fichetola, 63, is a 1974 graduate
of
Ham-
monton
H i g h
School. He
helped man-
age his fam-
ily’s farm
market and
garden cen-
ter,
then
went
to
at
Rocco Fichetola work
Whitehall-
robins Laboratories in 1986.
When Whitehall closed, fichetola
began working for trump Casino
Services, handling the produce in
their warehouse. He retired after
working there for 16 years.
fichetola, a lifelong resident of
Hammonton, and his wife, anna
Marie, have two sons, Matthew
and Michael.
fichetola believes the varied ex-
periences in his background make
him uniquely suited for a seat on
town council.
“When i was involved with the
farm and garden center, you had to
deal with the state, with the board
of health, with the county health
department; you had to deal with
all these different regulations, and
i can bring that experience to the
town. Plus i follow a lot of issues.
Some things, i like the way the
town is going. Some issues i think
can be addressed in a different
way,” fichetola said.
One of the issues in question in-
volves the proposed purchase by
the town of Hammonton of the
parcel of land known as frog
rock’s “back nine” for potential
sewer use.
“there’s no need to rush some-
thing you have to vote on in the
eleventh hour, saying someone else
is going to purchase it so we have
to vote on this now. that’s the old-
est con game; that’s a car sales-
man’s tactic. You have to have a
comprehensive plan, and it has to
be done the right way. i did take a
tour back there. Hammonton has a
lot of ground there; would i like to
see us, someday, purchasing frog
rock? absolutely; it would be a
great luxury, but right now it’s not
a necessity. i’d like to see it at the
right price, not three times what it
was appraised at. that’s not smart
business, especially when you’re
dealing with taxpayer money,”
fichetola said.
another issue fichetola fol-
lowed closely was the hiring of
then-Lt. Kevin friel as Hammon-
ton’s chief of police.
“Both are wonderful officers. i
just wish it could have been han-
dled differently. i wish they could
have worked something out. the
protocol was that you follow the
chain of command. the way it was
done was the wrong way, espe-
cially when you have protocol to
follow,” fichetola said.
fichetola is no stranger to proto-
col and regulations, having be-
come familiar with them
throughout his career. His ability to
navigate them, he believes, would
inform his tenure on council, par-
ticularly regarding spurring eco-
nomic development.
“One thing i learned that N.J. is
not always a business-friendly
state. We have to work with them
to not put any unnecessary burden
on them. You have to have rules
and regulations, but no unneces-
sary burdens. the Super Wawa on
the Pike; three years that was held
up in court. that’s three years that
we lost ratables. Years ago, Home
Depot or Lowes wanted to go out
by arena’s, and that was stopped.
i don’t want to see growth like
through Marlton, where every
quarter-mile there’s a red light, but
Hammonton’s got over 40 square
miles. i would not create any un-
necessary burdens,” fichetola said.
Under fichetola’s watch, many
different areas of Hammonton
would be targeted for economic
development.
“there’s room for growth in all
of our commercial properties in
Hammonton. Downtown Ham-
monton is beautiful, but we also
have properties on the White Horse
Pike, and out by the airport. i want
to spread the controlled growth
throughout all of Hammonton,”
fichetola said.
One industry, however, that
would not be welcomed by
fichetola, should New Jersey ever
pass legislation to legalize it, is
recreational marijuana.
“i do not agree with recreational
marijuana. Until i know that
there’s a system where you can test
if someone is driving under the in-
fluence, i am not for recreational
marijuana; just medical,” fichetola
said.
fichetola said his values will
help him if he is elected to town
council.
“My values may be old fash-
ioned, but they work. i love this
town so much. i raised my children
here, and this is where they’re
going to put me in the ground. i
want to see this town prosper. i
want to leave a nice legacy for my
children and my grandchildren,”
fichetola said.
Joseph Giralo
incumbent councilman Joseph
Giralo (r) will be seeking re-elec-
tion for a third consecutive term on
town council.
Giralo is a 1980 graduate of
Hammonton High School, and re-
ceived a B.a. in american history
from Stockton University (then
Stockton State College) in 1984.
He has worked with the atlantic
County improvement authority for
33 years, where he is a program
administrator. Giralo spends his
time as a
member of
the Lions
Club and
the
tCa
train Col-
lectors, as
well as the
Cruisin’
Classics Car
Club, which
he founded.
Joseph Giralo
Giralo and
his wife, Gina, have two daughters,
Gianna and Gemma.
Giralo, 57, a lifelong resident of
Hammonton, has been involved in
Hammonton politics since he was
16 years old. in 1981, at the age of
18, he ran for a seat on the Ham-
monton Board of education and
lost the election by six votes. He
has since served 15 years as a
member of the board of education.
During Giralo’s time on council,
and on the board of education be-
fore that, one theme has been con-
sistent throughout.
“in my world in government,
everything is a process,” Giralo
said.
it was that commitment to
process that caused Giralo to be the
sole vote against the appointment
of then-Lt. Kevin friel as Ham-
monton’s Police Chief.
“i come from civil service, from
a background where, if you’ve
come up the ladder, you don’t
break rank. that is simply my rea-
son. if you’re climbing a ladder,
you don’t miss a rung. Was it easy
to vote no? No. But the bottom line
is, if you’ve spent your lifetime
moving up the ladder, and we’ve
done that forever in Hammonton,
explain to me why. No one’s told
us,” Giralo said.
Giralo also applied that philoso-
phy to discussions involving the
purchase of the property com-
monly known as “the back nine” at
frog rock, to be used by the sewer
department. He initially supported
the idea because, as he put it, “the
idea made absolute sense.” He later
changed his mind on the topic.
“there has to be a process to buy
the property if that’s your goal. You
should be doing appraisals and you
should be looking at how much
land is actually available to use on-
side, how much is wetlands, what
is the benefit, what kind of facility
are you going to put out there, are
you going to put drip [irrigation]?
You can’t just do things willy-nilly
and spend $1.8 million,” Giralo
said.
Giralo also noted the hurried na-
ture of the vote, and how it didn’t
sit well with the town residents,
who were largely unware of any
insufficiencies that may currently
exist at the town’s extant sewer fa-
cility on Boyer avenue.
“i think the community became
enraged over this because it
seemed to be jammed down their
throats in five minutes. You’ve got
to do this or else. especially when
the majority administration never
told the people of Hammonton that
we have a problem. for 14 years
they’ve been there and said ‘it’s all
good.’ How did we go from ‘it’s all
good’ to ‘it doesn’t work’ to ‘we’re
going to have a moratorium’ in a
one-month process? if someone
can answer me that, maybe i’ll
change my mind,” Giralo said.
Giralo feels that water and sewer
issues are paramount if the town
wishes to continue its economic
development.
“infrastructure is key. all the
things we talk about, economic de-
See ELECTION, Page 8