Council Vacancy Coming Up

Image: Leatherleaf Viburnum, Fanwood train station, Nov. 29.

The last City Council meetings of the year will be an agenda-fixing session Dec. 13, a regular meeting Dec. 20 and the agenda-fixing session for the annual January reorganization on Dec. 27.

Each was to have been a week earlier, but the November and December schedules were both pushed back.

One item that may come up is appointment of a successor to Councilwoman Linda Carter, who won election to a Union County freeholder seat in the Nov. 2 general election. Carter, a Democrat, will assume the freeholder seat on Jan. 1, leaving one year in her council term. If she resigns from the council earlier, an appointee could take her seat.

The process for filling the vacancy is that the Democratic City Committee will offer three names to the governing body, which then selects one. The appointee will have to run in the June 2011 primary and the November general election for the full four-year term starting Jan. 1, 2012. If uncontested in the primary, the appointee will be on the November ballot. If there is a primary challenge, the winner goes on to the November election.

In the case of a vacant seat, the winner of the general election takes the seat immediately after the November election.

Carter holds the First and Fourth Ward at-large seat, meaning anyone eligible in either ward may seek the seat. That would include Vera Greaves, who lost the 2009 Fourth Ward Democratic primary election to Bridget Rivers by just six votes. The other seat up for election in 2011 is the Second Ward, currently held by Councilman Cory Storch. Given that Storch has been targeted by Democratic Chairman Jerry Green for harsh criticism and that Greaves has by all accounts worked hard for the party, at least two, possibly more, slates may emerge.

Such are the thoughts preoccupying the politically-minded even as the rest of the population is busy with holiday plans. If you are more interested in some holiday decorating and cooking ideas, try Not Martha for inspiration.

--Bernice