Location set for Gloucester Republican clash

Former Franklin Township municipal chairman Bill Fey, who’s taking on Gloucester County Republican Chairwoman Loran Oglesby at the party’s convention tomorrow night, said that Oglesby is doing everything she can to make it difficult for his faction to organize.  

Fey, who stepped down from his municipal chairmanship on Thursday, said Oglesby informed him of the time and place of the event Saturday afternoon -- giving him the requisite three days notice, but no more.  He said that questions sent to Oglesby by Washington Township Chairman Jeff Morris have not been answered.  

“We don’t even know the rules of this thing, who’s allowed in.  I have legal counsel that I demand be with me,” he said.  

The meeting is scheduled for the firehouse in Thorofare – an unincorporated community in West Deptford – at 7:30 tomorrow night.

“It’s all the way at the north end of the county to make sure it’s as far away from us as it can be,” said Fey.  

Oglesby countered that the convention has been held in that part of the county for the last three years, and that she was not aware of any email Fey or his allies sent until this morning.

Fey provided a copy of the email, which was sent to four addresses and asked basic procedural questions, and said he left a follow-up voicemail for Oglesby.

The meeting will be closed to everyone except members of the county committee.  If Fey wants to bring legal counsel, Oglesby said, then he or she must be a committee member.  

“I feel confident that the people will see the vast difference in the way Mr. Fey will govern and the way I have governed. He’s shown his actions through the press in the last several months and the ways he’s hurt the county organization, and I believe the people will vote against that," she said.

The fight for control of the  party started after Larry Wallace and Phyllis Scapellato – who were the party’s candidates for freeholder last year – publicly criticized Oglesby.  Fey soon took up the banner of the anti-Oglesby faction, and ran Wallace and Scapellato with his ticket last Tuesday.  But the slates of both Fey and Oglesby – who ran herself as a placeholder candidate – lost to Steve Lonegan-aligned Matthew Burns and Ronald Brittin.