Noticias

Roselle Democrats have chosen Cynthia Johnson as their candidate for an at-large borough council seat, defeating incumbent Denise Wilkerson by a vote of 20-7 in a court-ordered special meeting this evening.

Johnson, a 3rd Ward councilwoman, came within two votes of defeating. Wilkerson in the June Democratic primary.  But Superior Court Judge John Deitch annulled the primary results last week after a three-month legal battle that left both sides critical of the court’s sluggish movement.

With no Republican nominee, Johnson is now unopposed in the general election unless someone mounts a successful write-in campaign.

Wilkerson sought to file an appeal of Deitch’s ruling on Friday afternoon, but the judiciary has not responded to her emails or voicemails.

Deitch issued his order after business hours on Friday, and by then, the Appellate Division was closed.  Deitch had distributed his decision to some parties, but not all, prior to the 4:30 court closing.  The New Jersey Globe first reported Deitch’s ruling at 3:25 PM, and he had publicly announced it before the court closed.

“Within minutes of receiving this decision, (Councilwoman Denise) Wilkerson sought a stay from the trial, which was denied, and filed an application for an emergent appeal and a renewed motion to stay,” said Maximillan J. Ranzato, her attorney, in court documents filed today.

According to court documents, Wilkerson tried to contact the Appellate Division by phone and email, and reached out to the New Jersey State Police to contact a judge on call, but has received no response.

Deitch denied Wilkerson’s request that his ruling be stayed pending an appeal, even though his written decision had not been filed.   In New Jersey, attorney court filings are time-stamped, but decisions and orders from judges carry just the date and not the time.

Deitch has been dealing with the Roselle matter since June, when Wilkerson defeated Johnson in the Democratic primary by three votes.  He initially denied Johnson’s recount application, but the appellate division overturned him.  A recount reduced Wilkerson’s margin to two votes.

Last week, Deitch ordered a do-over primary election after finding at least three voters were inadvertently disenfranchised by poll workers.  But on Friday, Deitch changed his mind after discovering that he had no legal basis to order a new election.  He ordered the local Democratic Party to select a new nominee; in that venue, Johnson is considered the favorite.

One ballot was cast for “I vote for the people.”

The post Democrats pick Johnson in Roselle; Appellate Court still ghosts Wilkerson appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

The New Jersey court’s Appellate Division has not responded to a Roselle councilwoman’s appeal of a decision late Friday that invalidated the results of the June Democratic primary for an at-large borough council seat and ordered the local Democratic party to pick a new candidate today.

Superior Court Judge John Deitch issued his order after business hours on Friday, and by then, the Appellate Division was closed.  Deitch had distributed his decision to some parties, but not all, prior to the 4:30 court closing.  The New Jersey Globe first reported Deitch’s ruling at 3:25 PM, and he had publicly announced it before the court closed.

“Within minutes of receiving this decision, (Councilwoman Denise) Wilkerson sought a stay from the trial, which was denied, and filed an application for an emergent appeal and a renewed motion to stay,” said Maximillan J. Ranzato, her attorney, in court documents filed today.

According to court documents, Wilkerson tried to contact the Appellate Division by phone and email, and reached out to the New Jersey State Police to contact a judge on call, but has received no response.

Deitch denied Wilkerson’s request that his ruling be stayed pending an appeal, even though his written decision had not been filed.   In New Jersey, attorney court filings are time-stamped, but decisions and orders from judges carry just the date and not the time.

Deitch has been dealing with the Roselle matter since June, when Wilkerson defeated challenger Cynthia Johnson in the Democratic primary by three votes.  He initially denied Johnson’s recount application, but the appellate division overturned him.  A recount reduced Wilkerson’s margin to two votes.

Last week, Deitch ordered a do-over primary election after finding at least three voters were inadvertently disenfranchised by poll workers.  But on Friday, Deitch changed his mind after discovering that he had no legal basis to order a new election.  He ordered the local Democratic Party to select a new nominee; in that venue, Johnson is considered the favorite.

The Roselle Democratic County Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 PM tonight to select a general election nominee, and ballots are expected to be printed tomorrow morning.  State law requires election officials to commence mailing vote-by-mail ballots on September 20.

“The primary was in June, and the court process has somehow led to the disenfranchisement of over 3,000 voters,” Ranzato said.  “Wilkerson is uncertain how else she can seek emergent relief when the challenger to the primary will benefit from the court’s decision.”

The post N.J. appellate court ghosting candidate challenge to judge’s 11th hour ruling appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), the Democratic nominee for governor, released a platform on improving transparency and accountability in state government on Friday.

The platform, which she announced in Morristown with state Sen. Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange) and Assembly nominee Chigozie Onyema, largely focuses on increasing transparency surrounding state spending and the budget process. The platform is the latest of several she has released this summer.

“New Jerseyans need to know where their tax dollars are going,” Sherrill said. “They need accountability. They deserve accountability. You shouldn’t have to be a political insider to figure out how the state budget is running or where your money is going.”

New Jersey’s budget process is controversial to many, including many lawmakers. In June, the legislative budget committees met late on a Friday evening to clear the budget from committee, sparking frustration among Republicans and those who had hoped to testify on the bill.

Sherrill’s proposals, like a New Jersey Report Card, would track the budget and spending after they’re approved to ensure accountability. And she said that beyond tracking the money, the Report Card would measure the outcomes of budget items and offer a plain-language version of the budget.

“Agencies will be required to update the Report Card to show when a program receives funding in the budget, begins to operate on the ground, and demonstrates results that matter to families,” the platform states. “You will be able to see who got paid, for what purpose, at what cost, and what results were achieved, which will allow New Jerseyans to hold the state accountable.”

The congresswoman said all state contracts will be posted online in simple terms: the winner of the contract, the cost, and the services the state will receive in return.

Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominee for governor, has also proposed reforms to the state budget process. He said he wants a two-week “cooling off period” after a budget bill is introduced to give the public ample time to review spending proposals. He also proposed the creation of an NJ Department of Government Efficiency to weed out unnecessary or wasteful spending.

Sherrill’s platform doesn’t touch on several issues that transparency-focused groups and voters deem vital, including watchdog agencies, the Open Public Records Act, campaign finance, or financial disclosures for state officials.

Sherrill touted her release of tax returns showing the exact values of her holdings (the New Jersey Globe found she had no unusual stock gains while in office). But when asked whether she thought cabinet officials or state legislators should meet that same standard, she didn’t specify any reforms she’d like to see.

“You know, I would like people to have full transparency and accountability, so I’m going to work with the state government to determine what those requirements are at each level of government,” she said.

Transparency advocates in the state have condemned 2024 reforms to the Open Public Records Act, arguing the law’s weakened scope dealt a blow to transparency in the state. Sherrill has criticized some of the reforms, and while the platform does not address OPRA, she said Friday that she opposes the rollbacks.

“This plan actually addresses much of what people OPRA the state for,” she said. “And so I think we both need to have stronger OPRA laws to provide more accountability, but also, by putting this information out, we can continue to drive down the burden on the state of OPRA claims, because we will have so much of this available to the public.”

When asked whether she agrees the state comptroller should be “reined in” after a controversial report about a George Norcross-founded insurance brokerage, Sherrill said she could see a continued role for the comptroller but didn’t specify what that role would be. She didn’t say whether she would keep acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh in his role during a Sherrill administration.

“Look, I’m setting up a new government,” she said. “We’re providing a culture shift and a culture change, but certainly my comptroller is going to make sure to hold people accountable.”

During the event, Sherrill attacked Ciattarelli for not releasing his tax returns; Ciattarelli spokesperson Chris Russell said Ciattarelli is planning to release his tax returns this year and repeated attacks on Sherrill over her stock trades.

“Jack Ciattarelli was the most transparent member of the General Assembly,” Russell said. “He’s released his tax returns before and he’s going to again this year.”

The post Sherrill releases budget-focused transparency proposals appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

A candidate for Hillside Township Council is back on the ballot after her petitions were initially rejected by the municipal clerk, resolving a legal battle that was originally set to take months to resolve.

Sonya McBurrows, an ally of Hillside Mayor Dahlia Vertreese, filed to run for an at-large council seat with 278 signatures, 28 more than the 250 she needed. A complaint was filed by the local Democratic boss, however, and Hillside Municipal Clerk Rayna Harris determined that 37 of McBurrows’s signatures were invalid, thus removing her from the ballot.

McBurrows filed a legal challenge against her removal, and the case was assigned to Superior Court Judge John Deitch. Absurdly, Deitch then scheduled a hearing in the matter for October 3 – two weeks after vote-by-mail ballots have to be sent out. Deitch then moved the hearing forward three weeks to next Monday, September 15, before finally switching it to today.

McBurrows’s attorney, Jason Sena, argued in court today that McBurrows should remain on the ballot for two reasons. For one, he said, McBurrows was never notified of the challenge against her signatures as is required by state law, only learning of it once Harris had already made the decision to remove her from the ballot, a timeline Harris herself corroborated.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse. It’s the law,” Sena said. “That is a significant due process violation.”

Secondly, Sena said that eleven of the contested signatures should in fact have been allowed to stand. Harris had already conceded that six of the eleven should be counted before the hearing began, and Sena called up testimony related to the remaining five.

In his ruling, Deitch said that while Harris’s failure to alert McBurrows of the challenge violated state law, it didn’t amount to an attack on her due process rights: “While I find that the statute wasn’t complied with, I don’t find that the noncompliance was willful or malicious or somehow designed to prejudice the candidate,” he said. But he also said Sena had successfully convinced the court of many contested signatures’ validity, thus putting McBurrows above the 250-signature threshold and keeping her on the ballot.

The challenge to McBurrows’s signatures was originally filed by Anthony Salters, the chairman of the Hillside Democratic municipal committee who recently served a prison sentence for tax fraud. The local Democratic committee is supporting Councilman Craig Epps for mayor and his rival slate of council candidates in the November 4 nonpartisan election.

McBurrows is running on the Building a Better Hillside ticket with Vetreese, who has been on the outs with local Democratic power brokers for years, and one incumbent at-large councilmember, Robert Rios. Vertreese, an ally of Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, was first elected in 2017 by just 28 votes, and won re-election in 2021 even after the Union County Democratic organization endorsed one of her rivals.

A third mayoral candidate, Councilwoman Andrea Hyatt, is also running with her own slate; her slate only includes two at-large council candidates, so that race is an eight-way contest for three seats.

The post Vertreese ally allowed back on council ballot in Hillside appeared first on New Jersey Globe.