Roy Wesley

Unable to field a candidate both willing and able to do the job, Mercer County Republicans yesterday took a pass on replacing a freeholder candidate who had dropped out last month.

Yesterday was the deadline to file a replacement candidate for Republican Darren Chell, who dropped out of the race on August 8th citing personal and business obligations. 

Mercer County Democratic Chairman Rich McClellan gleefully pointed that out in a press release today, trumpeting it as a proof that Republicans tacitly acknowleged that Democrats ran an effective county government.

"I want to thank Roy Wesley and the Republicans for providing the outstanding evidence to demonstrate what a great job the Democrats are doing in managing County government. By failing to fill the freeholder candidate vacancy, the Republicans are conceding the fact,” joked McClellan.

Mercer County Republicans missed yesterday's deadline to fill a vacancy on the Freeholder slate, and as Democrats see it, have given up their chance to replace Darren Chell on the ballot.  Asked why Republicans couldn't take advantage of the 2002 New Jersey Supreme Court's voter choice decision (the one the allowed Democrats to replace Bob Torricelli with Frank Lautenberg in the Senate race -- and affirmed a year later when Democrats replaced Joseph Suliga with Nicholas Scutari), one Merce Democratic leader said that the extended deadline to switch candidates only applies to vacancies that come before the deadline to drop out -- not after the deadline.

Roy Wesley just barely hung on to his chairmanship of the Republican Party in heavily Democratic Mercer County.

Wesley, who's held the seat for a little over a year, beat Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried 93 to 90.

Things reportedly got heated between Wesley and Fried during the convention, but Wesley said that the two have settled their differences.  

"We're going to get along," he said.

Mercer County Republican Chairman Roy Wesley today charged that County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello kept an accused thief on the job at the county clerk’s office because he was a political appointee.

Last month, county clerk employee Ishmael M. Raines was charged pocketing fees that residents paid to get or renew passports. Raines failed to process many of the applications, which included sensitive materials like birth certificates, expired passports and social security numbers.

Sollami-Covello told the Trenton Times that, following complaints about passport application materials missing from Raines, he was taken off that duty and that she contacted the inspector general.

Mercer County GOP Chairman Roy Wesley is leading a weekend push to get signatures on John Crowley’s nominating petitions.   In an e-mail to Republicans, Crowley said he was “looking for volunteers to help gather petition signatures for John Crowley for U.S. Senate.”  A group of petition canvassers are meeting at the offices of Jamestown Associates at 10AM this morning to begin circulating the Crowley petitions.

State Sen. Bill Baroni endorsed Goya Foods heir Andy Unanue for U.S. Senate tonight, just an hour before the Mercer County Republicans’ executive committee meets to endorse a Senate candidate.

Mercer County Republicans voted to postpone the endorsement of a U.S. Senate candidate tonight and will wait and see if biotech millionaire John Crowley decides to enter the race.

“We have two new candidates, one from Mercer County,” said Mercer County GOP Chairman Roy Wesley. “So it’s almost like we have one of our own who we need to give some consideration to.”

Crowley, 39, was a Bristol-Myers Squibb executive eleven years ago when he found out his 15-month-old daughter and four-month-old son had a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease. He wound up leaving to head up a series of biotech firms and has raised a reported $200 million for research of genetic diseases. Harrison Ford is expected to play Crowley in a film about his life.

In an informal vote, taken by a show of hands, Mercer Republicans overwhelmingly supported deferring a formal endorsement in the Senate race, and authorized the party’s executive committee to award the organization line sometime before the April 7 filing deadline.

State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio and Ramapo College Professor Murray Sabrin attended the convention. A third candidate, millionaire businessman Andy Unanue, is vacationing in Vail.

HAMILTON -- Princeton businessman John Crowley is poised to enter the U.S. Senate race, according to Mercer County Republican Chairman Roy Wesley.

“Crowley has indicated, at least to me, that he’s interested in becoming a candidate for U.S. Senate,” said Wesley.

The Mercer County Republicans were set to endorse a U.S. Senate candidate at a convention tonight at 7:30, but the entrance of a Mercer native has led to a motion on the floor to defer the endorsement to the Executive Committee.