New Jersey’s Brand Of Public Service

Voters in North Brunswick's 12th district ousted a Democrat committeeman Ralph Andrews in last Tuesday election. Andrews had been found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident last year after he smashed into a neighbor's car.

The Democrats replaced him with Yomare Polanco who has been banned from teaching after he was found in a motel room with a 15-year-old girl, a former student at the school where he taught.

Polanco was a rising star in the New Brunswick school district -- having just been promoted to vice principal at New Brunswick High School -- in August 2001 when an anonymous tip led police to an Edison motel where Polanco was found with a 15-year-old girl.

The girl had been a student at the Roosevelt Elementary School, where Polanco taught science, but was transferred to the Woodrow Wilson School earlier in the school year.

Police said at the time of Polanco's arrest on child endangerment charges that his relationship with the girl was ongoing, not a one-time event.

In February 2002, Polanco entered into a plea bargain with the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office in which he agreed to surrender his teaching certificate in return for the prosecutor's office supporting his entry into a pretrial probation program that, if completed successfully, would lead to dismissal of the charges against him. His two-year period of probation in the program ended early last year.

Polanco said he decided to enter the pre-trial intervention program to save himself thousands of dollars in legal fees, but he was adamant that his relationship with the girl was purely professional, not sexual.

"We should be looking at how to straighten out North Brunswick's political situation, not gossip like this," he said. "The councilmen and political situation in North Brunswick have to be changed. That's why I decided to run (for committee)."