New Jersey Coalition For Democracy Reform Inc is a 100% volunteer run, non-partisan, incorporated 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Our long term goal is a comprehensive legislative solution to the longstanding systemic problems in our state’s political and election systems. These problems encourage corruption, discourage voters of both parties from participating in general and primary elections, discourage worthwhile candidates not endeared to party insiders, and inhibit the ability of our elected officials to return value to taxpayers in the form of durable, long term solutions to our most persistent problems.
- Bart Cocchiola
- Executive Director & Trustee
Born at Clara Maass Hospital in Belleville and raised in Nutley, Bart graduated Rutgers with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and started his professional life as a Project Engineer with a specialty chemicals manufacturer headquartered in Wayne. Bart would soon change careers, a move that now finds him employed as a pilot with a major US airline. Over the years, the ebb and flow of the airline industry necessitated an entrepreneurial approach to keeping the family’s bills paid so Bart has also been a successful carpenter & remodeling contractor, a licensed Investment Advisor Representative, and the owner of an aerial media production company that used unmanned aircraft, designed and built in-house, to provide high definition photography and video services to area real estate companies.
As a member of the Continental Airlines council of the Airline Pilot’s Association, Bart spent two and a half years lobbying his fellow members to reorganize their association so as to allocate representation opportunities more evenly throughout their seniority-based membership list, especially to those most junior on the list. This effort was ultimately successful but superceded by Continental Airline’s merger with United.
In his home community of Alexandria Township, Bart was co-founder of Great Schools 4 Alexandria, an informal community group that sought to raise awareness of less-than-ideal conditions in the local K-8 school district. A year later Bart was elected to the Alexandria Township School District Board and was elected President the following year. In the four years following the start of Great Schools 4 Alexandria, all nine school board seats were transferred to new members, a new Superintendent (interim) refocused the District curriculum/schedule on academics and a referendum, that had failed just a few years earlier, was passed. That referendum would create an opportunity for the community to save between $800,000 and $1,000,000 annually (offset by bond payments making the referendum tax-neutral) by closing one of the district’s two small school buildings while allowing the remaining building to be expanded and updated throughout.
In both cases above, the approach taken was to rely on factual information and grass-roots organizing to inform and educate stakeholders. This is the basis for the work now being done with New Jersey Coalition For Democracy Reform Inc.
- Kathy Koop, PhD
- Trustee
- William Prouty
- Trustee