The political machine in Wayne, New Jersey just got a Molotov cocktail tossed into its geriatric lap as former Board of Education President Catherine Kazan filed petitions today to run as an independent mayoral candidate, setting up a November showdown against two Republican retreads in a town where the “opposition party” hasn’t fielded a real Democrat since LBJ was in the White House.
On one side stands GOP incumbent Christopher Vergano, who’s been mayor since the Mesozoic Era, currently fossilizing in office while property taxes metastasize.
On the other, retired police sergeant Don Pavlak – a lifelong Republican until five minutes ago – now masquerading as a Democratic primary candidate against septuagenarian attorney James Freeswick, who’s lost more elections than Strom Thurmond won and now whines about “party purity” while Pavlak plays dress-up as a Democrat.
Enter Catherine Kazan – the only adult in the room – the steel-spined matriarch who steered Wayne’s schools through the COVID apocalypse. While Pavlak and Freeswick engage in their slapfight over who’s the “real Democrat” (spoiler: neither), Kazan represents something far more dangerous to Wayne’s political establishment: actual competence.
This is the woman who implemented full-day kindergarten against bureaucratic resistance, arm-wrestled the district through pandemic chaos while Vergano hid in his bunker, and earned praise even from rivals like Pavlak, who admitted through clenched teeth: “We didn’t always agree, but she always put kids first.”
Freeswick’s entire campaign rests on screeching that Pavlak is a wolf in Democratic clothing, citing his affordable housing plan that would allegedly turn Route 46 into what Freeswick calls a “Section 8 hellscape.”
Freeswick—a notable George McGovern supporter—thinks losing elections qualifies him to run another one.
Meanwhile, Pavlak leans on his 34 years as a nepo baby —he was the son of the top cop but got promoted only once—as if writing speeding tickets qualifies someone to manage a $100 million municipal budget.
Vergano’s first initiative after his last re-election was to propose turning the $18,750 post into a full-time job with a salary of $140,000 per year plus health care benefits.
Wayne Township Ordinance #1 of 2023 disappeared after a petition circulated by resident Stewart Resmer gained 748 signatures asking that the decision be put to the voters.
Kazan plays a different game entirely.
While the boys bicker about party labels, her platform reads like a New Deal fever dream: zero-tolerance for developer kickbacks (a Vergano specialty), transparent budgets (which would give Pavlak’s police union hives), and actual pandemic preparedness (remember when Vergano’s “plan” was crossing his fingers?).
At her final BOE meeting on December 21, 2023, Superintendent Mark Toback – a man not known for hyperbole – called Kazan “the toughest board member I’ve ever met.”
The contrast couldn’t be starker: Vergano’s biggest accomplishment is still being upright without a walker, Pavlak’s campaign slogan might as well be “Please Clap,” while Kazan actually saved the schools during the district’s darkest hour.
Kazan once filed a police report against a local father who she said threatened her at a public meeting.
Mark Faber, a resident of Overlook Avenue and father of four, allegedly charged the dais in the auditorium at Wayne Hills High School and threatened her during a meeting at which parents objected to school library books they thought were improper.
“This is our outlet as parents to express our dissatisfaction with what’s going on,” yelled Faber. “End the meeting and it’s going to happen in front of your fucking house.”
The Office of the U.S. Attorney General released a memo citing a “disturbing spike” in harassment and intimidation against school personnel across the country.
The FBI was directed to hold meetings with law enforcement agents on all levels to address the threats, which have included angry mobs, obscenities hurled at elected officials, smashed windows, physical confrontations, assaults, and arrests.
The unruly and violent conduct at many school board meetings, plus death threats directed toward elected members, had risen to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes, according to the National School Boards Association. In Wayne, Kazan stood up to such behavior like a tiger.
Wayne voters now face their starkest choice in decades: a GOP dinosaur, a GOP dinosaur in a blue hat, or the woman who did the actual work of governance when it mattered most.
As Toback said of Kazan: “Tough times don’t last. But tough people do.”
Wayne’s political hacks are about to find out just how tough Catherine Kazan really is.