Ramapo, September 26, 2005. This Wednesday, September 28th, Preserve Ramapo, the grass roots organization, will picket Ramapo Town hall from 7 pm to 8 pm. They will then confront Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence and the Town Board at the regular Ramapo Town Board meeting. The planned demonstration is a follow up to their handing in petitions to get two referendums on this November's ballot. The petitioners want the Election Day ballot to include referendums to create a ward system for town government and to increase the number of board members of the Town Board to six. Members of the Town Board would represent specific areas of the town, rather than sitting at-large as they now do.

The members of Preserve Ramapo fear that, as in the past two years, the petitions will be denied. The group would like the opportunity to point out to the Town Board, on the record, that almost 4,000 people in Ramapo would like to see these referendums on the ballot this year and that they should allow it. Cumulatively, in the past three years Ramapo residents wishing to put the issue to a vote submitted three petitions with more than 14,000 signatures.

Preserve Ramapo has three candidates on this year’s Town election ballot. They represent a cross section of the Town. Joe Brennan, currently the Deputy Mayor of Suffern and Preserve

Ramapo's candidate for Ramapo Town Supervisor, said, "We believe that in a Democracy we should let the people vote."

Preserve Ramapo also has two candidates running for the Ramapo Town Board, Herman Friedman and Michel Vilson, both from unincorporated Ramapo.

Preserve Ramapo is a town-wide coalition of Ramapo citizens from every ethnic, religious, economic and political party affiliation. It began as a grass roots effort to fight the Town of Ramapo's Master Plan for land use, which proposed widespread high-density housing throughout Ramapo. For more information on Preserve Ramapo and the issues that are affecting the Town, go to www.PreserveRamapo.org