Joseph "PJ" Moore for Georgetown Township Advisory Board.

Joseph “PJ” Moore is running as an independent for a seat on the Georgetown Township Advisory Board, a three-member board that (among other tasks) reviews the trustee's budget.

It’s a race that lies outside my own voting area, but nonetheless, Moore has my endorsement.

Moore is heavily involved in community affairs, and is an original member of the Edwardsville Cleanup Committee, which organizes and oversees an annual spring Cleanup Day. He’s a friend of Edwardsville’s Cavan Park, and currently volunteers his time painting murals on the I-64 underpass along Yenowine Lane. He assists in the mowing and maintenance of three cemeteries in the township.

Furthermore, and what strikes me as critical, there is Moore’s watchdog role as it pertains to county government. As a private citizen, he has been a tireless advocate of accountability and attends countless meetings on his own time.

In 2012, Moore’s street knowledge helped prevent the accidental misallocation of over $600,000 in insurance premium refunds when former auditor Darin Coddington, perhaps the most blatantly inept public official in recent memory, advised the county commissioners to give the lump sum money to county employees, rather than the correct procedure of reimbursing employees their share of the refund and rolling the remainder into the following year’s premiums.

In the exchange of birthday cards sense, I don’t know PJ Moore particularly well. We meet once or twice a year to discuss these and other issues, and he helps keep me abreast of the county’s “undernourished shark”-infested waters. He’s vigilant, and hardly pliant.

I can’t think of better recommendations for office.