The new state chairman of the Democratic Party enters the spotlight tonight in Roselle, where the Borough Council wants to hire him as a tax appeal attorney over the strenuous objections of Mayor Garrett Smith, against the building backdrop of Council President Jamel Holley's reelection campaign.

"They talk about trying to bring the party together, and it's all based on greed," said Smith.

Chagrined by the politics, the mayor has his hackles up over tonight's work meeting agenda item, championed early by the mayor's longtime political foe Holley, that would make Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski Roselle's second concurrent tax appeal attorney.

A working resolution would hire Palumbo and Renaud of Cranford as tax appeal attorney firm at a rate of $150 per hour for a maximum of $80,000. An additional resolution specifies no ceiling for Wisniewski and Associates of Sayreville, who would also work at $150 per hour.

"For a town this size to have two tax attorneys - it's outrageous in these tough economic times," said Smith, who acknowledged that Roselle is facing a tax hike this year. 

Stacked 4-2 againt him, the current construct of the governing body makes Smith all the more motivated this year to try to eliminate Holley and reverse course on a council continually blockading his executive agenda.

Roselle Mayor Garrett Smith needed this one, and so did the Union County Democratic Organization.
 
Those two mutually exclusive desires added up to one thing: a war.
 
Ever since former Assemblyman Neil Cohen's (D-Roselle) career went belly up amid charges of keeping child porn on his computer, the battle lines for local party control intensified here in his town, which, depending on your perspective, is either a buffer for Westfield against the danger-zone of Elizabeth or a buffer for Elizabeth against the whitebread excesses of Cranford and Westfield.
 
A mild-mannered wonk in Trenton, Cohen could get tough in his hometown as head of the local party. He wasn't beyond delivering full-blown, profanity-laced public dress-downs to recalcitrant committee members as he dealt with the ongoing headache of Smith, a charismatic independent Democrat, originally from Jersey City, who built his name as head of a thriving local basketball league before seeking his first term as mayor in 2003.
 
Smith and Cohen could grudgingly come together to beat on Republicans in presidential or gubernatorial general elections, but mostly they embroiled themselves in a Roselle battle-royale with themselves as chief antagonists.

Certainly, someone running for re-election this year might be comforted by special case asterisks in those contests where challengers upset sitting mayors or council people.

But consider the name politicians who lost over the course of May and June municipal cycles, or found the terrain too tough to run again, or barely won re-election, and it looks like treacherous territory for incumbents in a gubernatorial election year.

Two of last week's losers - Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello (buried by Tim Dougherty, 62.46 to 37.48%) and Edison Mayor Jun Choi (who lost, 50.70 to 47.79% contest to Councilwoman Toni Ricigliano) - arrived at their re-election bids with their own particular challenges.

In or around elected office for over 30 years, Cresitello possesses institutional knowledge and insider connections that helped as he kept Morristown's tax rate stable over the course of his most recent four-year term. But he also asked for pay raises for himself, which the council refused, targeted undocumented workers in his crackdown of apartment house stacking, and considered placing a public works' garage in Ward 2, which empowered his opponent to build on a base of residents who felt disrespected.

Worth watching on Tuesday: Democratic mayoral primaris in Edison, Englewood, Morristown,  Atlantic City, Plainfield, Camden and East Orange, and Republican intra-party fights in Bergen, Gloucester and Passaic counties.

PLAINFIELD – Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs played it feisty throughout the course of a two hour debate forum featuring seven mayoral candidates and two Assembly candidates, poking now and again at her chief rival, then letting it rip when she stood for her closing statement and again focused most of her ire on 3rd Ward Councilman Adrian Mapp, who’s challenging the establishment Democrat as the leader of the upstart New Democrats.

“There’s one candidate up here who can’t even get the budget of Roselle right, a budget that ended up in court, and now he wants to be mayor,” said Robinson-Briggs, Plainfield’s first woman mayor, landing a last second dig at Mapp, who serves as chief financial officer of Roselle.

Mapp laughed it off.

It was the last of several barbs Robinson-Briggs tossed in his direction during a forum sponsored by the red-jacketed Robinson-Briggs allies - Women for Progress in Plainfield.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs has an enormous money advantage over the New Democrats’ challenger, Councilman Adrian Mapp, having raised $140,000, according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, compared to $16,000 raised by Mapp. 

“Money always makes a difference,” Mapp admitted. “It helps you get your message out there, but I have a great group of volunteers to help me get my message out. Her truckload of money will not help her get around the failed leadership she has exhibited under the control and domination of Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield).”

A member of the Union County Democratic Party seeking re-election to a second term in office, Robinson-Briggs did not attend a candidates’ forum last week. There are at least two more scheduled.

PLAINFIELD – Running as the New Democrat successor of the late Mayor Al McWilliams, 3rd Ward Councilman Adrian Mapp opened his campaign headquarters on Watchung Avenue Saturday and promised to end what he described as “a dictatorial form of government” in Union County’s Queen City, and to fairly represent all four wards.

“I will create an economic development plan that is not developer-driven, and develop an aggressive marketing plan to enhance Plainfield’s image,” said Mapp, standing at a podium in front of an American Flag hung from the ceiling. “With a transit village tax credit, the train station can be our linch pin for  revitalization. I would also like to undertake a study of all brownfield structures and create retail store ratables where possible.”

A large concentration of those old structures stands in the 4th Ward, the city’s longtime poorest residential district and the epicenter of the 1967 Plainfield riots. When she first won election nearly four years ago with the establishment backing of Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield) , Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs defeated then-incumbent Mayor Al McWilliams in the 4th, 868 to 698 votes. 

Councilman Adrian Mapp

PLAINFIELD - Pledging transparency in government, better city services and better advocacy for residents, Ward Three Councilman Adrian Mapp today formally announced his intention to challenge one-term Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs.

A former two-term member of the Plainfield City Council and former Union County Freeholder, Mapp won re-election to the council last year on a ticket with Annie McWIlliams, daughter of the late former Mayor Al McWilliams, whom Robinson-Briggs defeated four years ago.

"I had planned as far back as 2007 on running for Mayor," said Mapp, "but put that thought on the back burner after I was approached by residents about running for the Ward 3 seat. Folks were concerned that with the issues the country and the City were facing, a more experienced and pro-active presence was needed from the Third Ward."

PLAINFIELD – Get it right in four years or you’re gone. 

That’s the message the voters consistently deliver in the Union County city of Plainfield, and looking at past results, most of their elected leaders get it wrong. 

In 125 years of political wrangling, only one mayor won reelection here. 

That was the late Al McWilliams, a self-professed New Democrat who in 2005 failed to get over a rising crime wave and lost his bid for a third term to machine Democrat Sharon Robinson-Briggs by 325 votes, 2,713 to 2,388.

Now Robinson-Briggs, 49, Plainfield’s first woman to serve as mayor, readies for her reelection campaign next year in what will likely be a hard fought Plainfield contest with once and future councilman Adrian Mapp, a McWilliams ally and now leader of the New Democrats, who’s energized by his successful return to local politics.

In Plainfield and Hillside, sources say two African-American women will be running for reelection to the mayor’s race next year, one with the backing of the Democratic Party and the other in opposition to the machine.    

First, in Hillside, sources say incumbent Mayor Karen McCoy Oliver and Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DiFilippo will likely not make peace before next year’s May election.   

They’re both dug in on this one.    

DiFilippo lives in Hillside and has served as municipal party chair for 36 years. Oliver would be pursuing her third term in office.