Nine Assembly freshmen will trigger nine vacancies for county, local office

The massive turnover in the New Jersey State Assembly will trigger new opportunities for nine new people after incumbents resign their current posts to join the legislature on January 9, 2024.

There will be a new county commissioner in Sussex, new mayors in Bloomfield, Chester, and Stafford, new councilmembers in Gloucester Township, Livingston, New Brunswick, and Ocean Township, and a new school board member in Monroe.

In municipalities with partisan elections, the county committee of the party that held the vacant seat submits three names to the governing body, which may either pick one of the names or send it back to the county committee to pick.  The remaining elected officials select vacancies in non-partisan municipalities and school boards.

Dawn Fantasia must give up her seat as a Sussex County Commissioner.  That will trigger a special election convention of Republican county committee members to fill the remaining year of her term.

Two prospective candidates have already entered the race: Lafayette Councilman Alan Henderson and Earl Schick, a Republican county committeeman from Newton.  Frankford Mayor David Silverthorne and others are also mulling county commissioner bids.

It’s unclear who has the edge in a county where Republicans were sharply divided this year.  Fantasia won a tough primary for two open Assembly seats, and  23-year-old farmer and graduate student Jack DeGroot ousted two-term County Commissioner Herb Yardley by 23 percentage points.

But in a race for Sussex County GOP Chairman two weeks later, Skylands Tea Party President  Joseph Labarbera was elected by six votes against a candidate backed by the State Sen. Steve Oroho, Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths, County Commissioner Jill Space, and DeGroot.

Bloomfield will get its first new mayor – and possibly its first woman mayor — in nearly a decade when Michael Venezia departs to take his Assembly seat.   Possible candidates include two councilwomen, Jenny Mundell and Wartyna Davis.   Venezia is the Democratic municipal chair, so he’ll have a big say over his successor.

Venezia was re-elected to a four-year term in 2022; Bloomfield will have special primary and general elections in 2024 to fill his unexpired term.

Michael Inganamort, who won a 24th district Assembly seat on a ticket with Fantasia, will give up his mayor’s seat after one year.  Republicans will fill his seat until the 2024 special election for the remaining two years of his term.

In Stafford, the local GOP will select a new mayor to replace Greg Myhre, who will become an assemblyman.  The mayor and all six council seats are up in November 2024.

If Bloomfield, Chester, and Stafford choose a council member as its new mayor, the process to fill the unexpired council term will also be repeated.  That could trigger special elections for unexpired terms on the council next year.

Democrats in Gloucester Township, Livingston, and New Brunswick will fill council vacancies for Daniel Hutchison, Rosy Bagolie, and Kevin Egan, respectively. Hutchison’s term expires in 2025, and Bagolie’s in 2026, so both resignations will trigger 2024 special primary and general elections.

Margie Donlon was re-elected to the Ocean Township Council for a four-year term in May 2023 and to the Assembly earlier this month.  Because elections are non-partisan, the remaining councilmembers will pick an interim replacement for Donlon, with a special election for the seat to be conducted in May.

The Monroe Township Board of Education will replace Cody Miller, who won an Assembly seat.  His term was due to expire next year.

New Jersey passed a ban on dual officeholding in 2007, meaning elected officials must resign by 11:59 AM on January 9 to be sworn into the legislature at noon.

When North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco leaves the State Senate in January, it will drop the number of remaining dual officeholders who were grandfathered in when the law was passed to three: State Sen./Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack, State Sen./Wood-Ridge Mayor Paul Sarlo, and Assemblyman/Passaic Council President Gary Schaer.

Three others risked their current posts to run for Assembly: Gloucester County Commissioner Heather Simmons, Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra, and Saddle River Councilman John Azzariti.  Two assemblymen-elect from Hudson County didn’t seek re-election to their local posts last May: West New York Mayor Gabe Rodriguez and North Bergen Commissioner Julio Marenco.

Berkeley Township Mayor Carmen Amato and Old Bridge Mayor Owen Henry didn’t seek re-election to take Senate seats.