Date: 1992/01/23 Thursday Page: Section: NEWS Edition: FINAL

ORANGE COUNCILWOMAN RECALL VOTE SCHEDULED
KEVIN C. DILWORTH

The Orange City Clerk has set March 9 as the day for a recall election, which seeks the ouster of North Ward Council woman Louise Corvino. Voters will be asked to name a replacement, and Corvino, as is allowed by law, has put her name up for consideration. Donald Page, whom Corvino defeated in the May 1990 municipal race for that same North Ward post, has tossed his hat into the ring. Meanwhile, Corvino, a two-term incumbent who operates a family fruit and vegetable stand in the city, and Page, a board of education member who is a civilian supervisor with the Newark Police Department's records and identification bureau, have begun making campaign pitches and trying to woo voters for their support.

Councilman Mims Hackett and three other North Ward residents began the recall of Corvino last fall and, by December, had gathered enough valid signatures to call the recall election. Corvino, who is fighting the recall in Superior Court in Newark, last month said the attempt to remove her is nothing more than a political scheme engineered by Mayor Robert L. Brown to help pave the way for the mayor's re-election bid in May and to remove any political opposition. Besides Hackett, the other recall organizers are Ann Cobbertt, the wife of mayoral appointee and Police Director Charles Cobbertt; Gloria Holland, the mayor's mother-in-law; and resident Kevin Hardaway. There are 3,177 North Ward residents registered to vote. Corvino's term does not expire until July 1, 1994.

''I have served the citizens of the North Ward and the city for eight years,'' Corvino said yesterday. ''I've dedicated myself to my position and worked on behalf of the taxpayers to hold the tax line down. ''I've represented my constituents to the utmost and have treated their problems as if they were mine,'' she added. ''I have constant visibility in my ward and throughout the city. ''My campaign slogan has always been: “Honest. Clean government,” Corvino continued. ''And this is what I've given the people.''

Page said, ''I will take my candidacy directly to the people and speak on issues directly concerning the recall election and offer solutions some politicians have avoided discussing or acting on in recent years.'' He pledged to be ''visible and responsive'' if selected to replace Corvino. Corvino, Page complained, has failed to support every law enforcement and related initiative that the police director asked the council to endorse, rejected giving Cobbertt a leave of absence from his civil service lieutenant's position so he can retain his civilian post, failed to sanction all of Mayor Brown's budget requests, and refused to vote in favor of a one- time municipal measure that might have helped increase school aid funding for the city.

Page is terribly misinformed about facts, Corvino responded. ''What amazes me,'' she said, ''is that Mr. Page knows so much about the voting of council and the budget, yet he has never attended a council meeting or a budget hearing since his defeat in 1990. ''I have never voted down anything pertaining to the police department's budget or anything for the police department,'' said Corvino. ''When it comes to director Cobbertt's leave of absence, mine was not the only dissenting vote. There were four (negative votes) in its entirety.'' ''We have a budget committee that worked on the budget with the mayor,'' Corvino said. ''And I believe the mayor received everything he asked for. Plus.'' On the subject of the school aid proposal, Corvino said, ''supporting the municipal measure that Mr. Page is talking about would have increased the taxes in Orange by 23 percent.''