Flying solo on the Township Council

Life as the only member

of the minority party

on the dais

BY PATRICIA A. MILLER

Staff Writer

Council President Stephen C. Acropolis had a standard M.O. to pump himself up for meetings back in the days when he was the lone Republican on the Brick Township Council.

He would blast Led Zeppelin or the Allman Brothers in his car on the way to a council meeting to put himself in the proper mind-set.

"It was kind of like going to an athletic event," Acropolis said.

"I would turn the radio on and put it up really loud, so I would get psyched up for the meeting. It was kind of like a gladiator going into the Colosseum."

Things have changed since the early 2000s, when Acropolis and former Democratic Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli often scrapped verbally at meetings. Today Acropolis is council president. Scarpelli, who pleaded guilty in federal court Jan. 8 to accepting bribes, is facing jail time.

And Councilwoman Kathy Russell is now the only Democrat on the council. Russell said she can pretty much take things in stride at the meetings. She doesn't need Led Zeppelin.

"It's all in how I grew up," she said. "I don't come unglued easily. I'm a very calm person. I can jab right back, but I don't find it necessary. We are there to conduct business for the people of Brick Township."

Russell is used to Republicans. She's been married to one for almost 40 years.

"So I do have some insight into their thinking," she joked.

Acropolis said he doesn't want Russell to go through what he went through as the only member of the minority party on the council, like being called "Attila the Hun."

"I've tried to not, as council president, have the same things happen to Kathy Russell that happened to me," he said. "I don't want Kathy to have to go through that. She has the floor whenever she wants. I was told a number of times I couldn't speak. Whenever you have the floor as a councilman or councilwoman, you have the floor for as long as you want to talk."

Russell does agree that she is given enough time to speak at council meetings.

"I think he's just being the same way I was when I was council president," Russell said. "I remember him speaking for at least 45 minutes and I never once stopped him. I don't think you have to be long-winded. It's not about the length of time you speak, it's about the quality of what you have to say."

One particularly rancorous meeting back in October 2003 prompted former Democratic Mayor Daniel F. Newman to chastise both Scarpelli and Acropolis. Newman called for the men to settle their differences privately.

"I'm a big boy," Acropolis said. "But I had the same type of butterflies in my stomach when I went to some of those meetings as I did when I played championship games for the high school hockey team."

And he feels he has been vindicated, since Scarpelli has pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

"I think I know now why some of those things have happened," he said. "I used to get fired up to go into those meetings, in order for me to get my points across. I think now people know why I had to battle. It was my job to get that out to people."

Both Russell and Acropolis admit it can get lonely on the dais without any fellow party members.

"I wish there were other Democrats up there with me," Russell said.

"Hopefully, this coming fall will change something of that. There have been times I've felt like a party of one. I go home and talk to my husband, get a different viewpoint and share some thoughts. I realize that it's not the only thing in my life."

There weren't many members in the Brick Republican Club back in the days when he was the only Republican council member, so Acropolis would "hang out" with Republicans in Toms River, he said.

"I did feel lonely up there," he said.

And the unflappable Russell will continue to do what she has always done before a council meeting - review her council packet.

"I don't think of this as entering into a war or a sporting event," she said. "I think of it in terms of a council meeting."