April 29, 2008
By SETH AUGENSTEIN
SPARTA — The most divisive figure in town — the person whose petitions circulate the township, and whose self-described "troops" canvass the downtown for like-minded citizens and signatures, inevitably finding opponents, too — has passports shot through with stamps from more than 70 countries.
He's been around. A spectrum of red, blue, green and black inks from China, Sweden, Israel and nearly half the world line the pages of three passports, and Jesse Wolosky speaks proudly of traveling the world — and packing light along the way.
"Give me a one-way ticket, my passport, my backpack, and I'm gone," he said in an interview.
Wolosky, 46, says he is a "passionate" person, and travel is the great love of his life. It appeals to a life in which "one thing has always led to another" — whether that means organizing student protests at Fairleigh Dickinson University, living and working two jobs in Japan for five years, organizing college tours, running a New York Times-reviewed restaurant in Sparta — or fomenting and organizing opposition to local government in Sparta that seeks an overhaul of the Township Council.
Put in other terms, recall petitions and organizing grassroots opposition to a garbage utility is just the latest expression of a man who has lived life his own way, from day to day and year to year.
"You do it, you accomplish it, you move on ... It gets boring doing the same thing, otherwise," he said. "But everything I do I feel passionate about. I get good at whatever it is, and I move on."
Right now, that passion is trying to organize a sizable minority for Sparta to recall three members of the Township Council and to alter the course of township government.
A 'desire to improve' Sparta
Phil Lid, a Sparta resident and Wolosky supporter, said Wolosky has compassion and a distaste for badly run government that they share, and they've formed a bond over the last months.
"He's a very hardworking guy who has a sincere desire to improve Sparta," Lid said.
But at the same time, Wolosky's also become the lightning rod for controversy. A good portion of Sparta —particularly senior citizens, by his own admission —supports his ideas. But his ideas don't always have popular support. Although he collected enough signatures on his petitions to bring the March 11 referendum regarding a township garbage utility, his idea was defeated decisively at the polls. Further petition movements — including the recall of the council members who publicly support the utility — have yet to affect local laws, and letters to the editors of local newspapers express distaste for, and support of, Wolosky in equal measure.
Mayor Michael Spekhardt, who is the target of one of the recall petitions, calls Wolosky a "tremendous hypocrite" who has no credibility.
"Here's an individual who can go unchecked and say whatever he wants," the mayor said.
To Israel and back again
Wolosky, a United States citizen born in Connecticut, speaks with a slight but unidentifiable accent. He grew up in Israel, in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, during tense times. He recalls living with the specter of religious war, and remembers the 1973 Yom Kippur War vividly, when military trucks rolled down the otherwise empty streets. His mother, Wanda, a survivor of the Holocaust, volunteered for the Israel Defense Force in 1951, and his father, a U.S. Air Force serviceman from Flatbush, survived the years in a war zone, but Wolosky himself still has an intense reaction to the memories of having to live under the constant threat of attack. As in most things, though, he remains aloof and doesn't want to talk about much about his personal experience, rather relying on that experience to inform his next move.
"I know what I've done. I'm just not so public about most of it," he said.
The family moved back to the United States, where Wolosky graduated high school. But it was in college that he began his activist life. An avid dancer, in 1982 he boogied a 24-hour marathon at the Rockaway Mall to raise money for muscular dystrophy research. At FDU, he was a member of the school's board of comptrollers. He also organized a student movement for a full-scale graduation ceremony that the university had decided against holding. The petitions he circulated on the Rutherford, Teaneck and Madison school campuses were successful — and were the hotel and restaurant management major's first foray into a life of activism that the township of Sparta is now very familiar with.
But travel — both in geography and experience — has been his defining experience. He says that what he has seen defines and informs his present-day battles in Sparta.
Deja Vu in Sparta
He returned to the United States in the early 1990s and settled in Sparta, bringing his financial knowledge into real estate, and eventually, tax liens. A prowess with numbers and finance apparently makes him solvent, and then some. But that need for variety still affects his career path when he translated one of his fundamental passions into a local business. The Deja Vu Cafe gave way after a season to the favorably reviewed White Deer Restaurant, which attracted attention in The New York Times. His parents owned various restaurants as he was growing up, and he was managing kitchens by age 13, so cooking was always a basic part of his life. For four years, White Deer was a destination spot for Sussex County, with high-end food amid a rather Spartan backdrop and decor in a former furniture store. An open kitchen served local wild game and French culinary delicacies. The combination was a success, he recalls. But in true Wolosky form, he tired of the business aspect of the enterprise after a few years.
With the restaurant, he's become a local fixture. He got drawn into the workings of the town with the garbage utility issue last November, fresh from his trip to the North Atlantic. He single-handedly became the organizer of the group that successfully petitioned for a referendum on the establishment of a garbage utility.
The recall petition against Spekhardt and two other council members is in circulation and a source of controversy in the township. He said his complaints against the council — whether licensing fees, allegations of mismanagement or negligence against the town's elected government — all add up to another one of his passions: bringing change. That duty for the future, he says, is paramount.
"I always believe in sacrificing today for tomorrow, in saving for the future," he said.
Wolosky, a business manager for his student newspaper at FDU, was quoted prominently in a local newspaper at the time for his victory in securing a graduation ceremony for the class of 1986. One thing remains consistent: the passion he has for whatever he's involved in.
"They call it a compromise — we call it a victory," Wolosky said in 1986.
"I think I became a fighter from a very young age," he said 22 years later.
