September 18, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 5 Mahwah Open township council seat draws four candidates by Frank J McMahon As of the Sept. 3 deadline for filing nominating peti- tions, four Mahwah residents had filed with sufficient sig- natures to place themselves on the ballot in the November general election. All four are seeking election to the vacant seat on the township council. In Mahwah, the municipal election is a non-partisan event. The four candidates in alphabetical order are: former councilman and Bergen County Freeholder Robert G Hermansen, planning board member and former council candidate Jonathan N Marcus, environmental commis- sion member Gregg A Sgambati, and resident Jonathan S Wong. Hermansen, 44, is married with four children and has lived in Mahwah for over 12 years. He has volunteered as a coach in the township’s recreation programs. As a council- man, he served on the Cable TV Committee that negotiated the township’s cable TV contract and led the labor nego- tiations with the township’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Asso- ciation. He also was the liaison to the township’s board of education. Hermansen has been a resident of Bergen County since 1983 and he has worked as a financial advisor since grad- uating from Saint Bonaventure University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He is currently employed by Wells Fargo Advisors in Paramus where he is the first vice president, investments. Prior to that, he was a financial advisor for Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley in New York City. He has been a registered Republican since 1986 and he has been actively involved in the Bergen County Republi- can Organization since 1993. In 2009, he was elected to the Bergen County Board of Freeholders and served from 2010 to 2013. He was chair- man of several of the organization’s committees, including the Law and Public Safety and Health Services commit- tees. He was also a member of the Budget and Finance and the Organization and Internal Affairs committees. Marcus, 44, has been a resident of Mahwah for over 15 years, having originally resided in the Cragmere Section and, for the past 11 years, in the Fardale Section with his wife Tammy and his two young daughters. He graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey with a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in law and society. He also earned a juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was a member of the Seton Hall Law Review. He is the assistant general counsel for one of the “Big 4” certified public accounting firms, where he provides in-house representation. Previously, he was an associate attorney in the corporate department of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP where he provided representation to both public and private clients across a wide range of indus- tries on mergers, divestitures and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, private equity and debt financings, and complex commercial transactions. Prior to joining Weil, he was an associate in the cor- porate department of Sills Cummis & Gross, PC, where he provided representation to a wide range of clients, pri- marily at the entrepreneurial/start-up through mid-market level, in connection with a diverse array of corporate, busi- ness, and commercial issues. He is the immediate past president of the Ramapo Col- lege Alumni Association Board of Directors and he is a member of the Ramapo College Foundation Board of Gov- ernors. He is also a member of the college’s Strategic Plan- ning Task Force, which recently completed development (continued on page 15)