Winner says he’ll clean up past practices

After a brief but intense election campaign, Oceanside Sanitation District 7 has a new commissioner.

In the June 18 election, John Mannone defeated Craig DeBaun, 713 to 353, capturing almost 67 percent of the votes. There were 82 paper affidavit ballots that were not opened because they would have not made a difference, said election officials.

Earlier this year, a state comptroller’s audit revealed that two former sanitation supervisors, father and son Mike and Charles Scarlata, collected $800,000 in retirement benefits on top of their salaries. Mike Scarlata received $391,000 in deferred payments from 1998 to 2013, after retiring in 1998 with a $75,000 annual pension. His son received $421,353 in payments in 2012 and 2013, after he retired.

Mike Scarlata remained as a consultant to the sanitation board under a five-year contract, earning $62,000 a year as well as health benefits.

Mannone said that one of his first acts as commissioner would be to try and recoup that money. “I’m going to get to work negotiating the terms of surrender of Mike Scarlata,” he said.

He has said that he would persuade the board to comply with the audit, and that he believes that he and fellow comissioners Tom Lanning and Ed Scharfberg now constitute a majority that will have the power to dismiss the senior Scarlata.

On his campaign’s Facebook page, Mannone repeatedly accused DeBaun of being associated with the Scarlatas. DeBaun did not respond to those comments, saying that he preferred to focus his campaign on his accomplishments. “I bit my tongue so I did not have to respond to some of the negative, incorrect statements that were made,” he said. “Not once did we knock my opponent.”

After the results were announced, DeBaun said “We ran a clean campaign. I’m proud of the way we ran our campaign.”

“I’m very proud of the public’s vote,” said Mannone. “I’m proud to be in Oceanside.”

Mannone will replace Christopher Powers, who is retiring. The district’s other commissioners are Chairman Joseph Cibellis, Tom Lanning, Florence Mensch and Ed Scharfberg. Lanning was elected last year in an election that took two months to decide after the voting machines showed discrepancies between the number of votes cast and the number of voters. Mannone served as Lanning’s lawyer at the time.

Sanitation commissioners are paid $7,500 per year and serve five-year terms. The sanitation board oversees the garbage pickups at more than 13,000 homes and 950 businesses. It collected $8.8 million in taxes last year.