Dems to endorse candidates as incumbent retires
TRENTON >> Mercer County Democrats on Thursday will identify their preferred candidate to succeed outgoing County Commissioner Pasquale “Pat” Colavita Jr.
Formerly known as a freeholder, Colavita is not seeking re-election to Mercer County’s seven-member legislative board this year, causing several fellow Democrats to pursue the open seat.
A Mercer County Democratic Convention will take place 6 p.m. Thursday via Zoom, where all qualified voting members pursuant to Mercer County Democratic Rules will have the opportunity to vote on their choices for 2021 Democratic candidates, according to the party chair and East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov.
“The Mercer County Democratic Party,” Mironov said Wednesday via email, “is excited about our Convention and has really terrific accomplished and caring candidates to hear from and vote for at our party convention.”
Democratic committee members are expected to endorse incumbent County Commissioners Sam Frisby and Ann Cannon by acclamation, while a more dramatic process will determine who gets endorsed as Colavita’s potential successor.
“While it has been standard practice to do acclamation for incumbents,” Mironov said, “this recommendation will be voted upon and determined by the full Convention. Then the balloting will proceed in accordance with the Convention vote.”
Fran Carroll, a Democratic committeewoman from Hamilton, said she plans to introduce a motion at the convention that would allow members to vote on which commissioner candidates get the party line rather than voting by acclamation in a heavily contested race, with two incumbents and four newcomers.
Frisby and Cannon are the favored incumbents, with a third seat opening up on the Mercer County Board of Commissioners with the retirement of Colavita, who has served since 2004. Challengers include Hopewell Township committeewoman Kristin McLaughlin, Lawrence councilman Mike Powers, Yan Mei Wang of West Windsor and Terrance Stokes of Trenton Public Schools fame.
“Who gets selected Thursday night is going to be our county commissioners and the voters don’t know this,” Carroll said, pointing to the entrenched dominance for Democrats of getting the party line in the heavily Democraticleaning Trenton area.
Cannon, an East Windsor
resident, has been a Mercer County commissioner since 1995.
Frisby was first elected as freeholder/commissioner in 2011 to fill Dan Benson’s vacant seat. The current commissioner board chairman, a consultant and chief executive officer for the YMCA of Trenton, Frisby is running for a fourth three-year term this year.
County commissioners are mulling over many issues impacting the Trenton area as they brace for the election. The board just received Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes’ budget, is overseeing expansion of a terminal at the Mercer County Airport and is enmeshed in an ongoing legal dispute about housing most of the county’s high-risk county inmates in Hudson County.
The case was set down for trial this coming December after a judge issued an injunction halting the Democrat-backed plan, opposed by corrections and state officials, including the top public defender Joseph Krakora.
“The prison is a real issue,” Frisby said, adding Mercer County officials never garnered enough support in neighboring counties to develop plans to build a “super prison.”
For Frisby, this might be his toughest re-election fight in some time. Earlier this year, he found himself in the crosshairs of Republicans who alleged that he was an accessory to voter fraud.
He acknowledged delivering a ballot for the late Luis Mollinedo but said he was unaware of a state law disqualifying ballots of voters who die before Election Day.
NJ Advance Media cited an unnamed law enforcement source who claimed the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office was investigating Frisby. The AG declined to confirm whether that was the case.
Frisby shrugged off the alleged probe as a stumbling block in his quest for another term.
“I’m not concerned about that. I won’t be making any statements on it because it’s nonexistent,” he said. “They can try to make it an issue if they’d like . ... I’m not believing anything that someone creates themselves.”
Residents face serious issues, Frisby said, pointing to racial gaps in access to education, healthcare and incarceration rates.
New Jersey, for example, had the highest disparity among white and Black prisoners in the nation. Those issues are sharply in focus as Americans grapple with social justice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“We are basically an apartheid state,” said Frisby, who sponsored a resolution last year supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. “What I mean by that is … in every measurable sense of the word, for the Black and brown community there’s a disparity that is unfathomable. We have to begin to speak to the social injustice that we see in our state or otherwise we’re always going to be talking about struggling.”
Frisby said the Dems should have set “rules right from the beginning” as incumbents like him who didn’t get to speak at certain local forums could be disadvantaged.
“I’m always willing to compete. That’s what it’s about. But you have to let me know that from the beginning,” Frisby said. “If that’s what the convention decides, I will live by the rules that are set, and I’m not going to cry foul ball.”
Frisby is one of three candidates who picked up an endorsement from Our Revolution Trenton Mercer, a progressive group focused on issues like college debt forgiveness, criminal justice and racial equality.
The organization is throwing its support behind Wang and Stokes. Wang is a scientist with a doctorate and a grassroots activist. Stokes is a commissioner for Ewing Township Redevelopment Agency and runs a youth football program in Trenton.