Defeated in race for mayor, councilman cites "too much nastiness and distortion and misleading information"
By: Jake Uitti
ROCKY HILL Borough Councilman Brad Merritt submitted his resignation Friday, effective immediately.
"This last election just did me in," said Mr. Merritt, who served on the council as a Republican from 1990 to 2002, and was elected again as an independent in 2005. "There is just too much nastiness and distortion and misleading information. It was a nasty campaign and I really didn’t like it. So I had to make a decision."
In a bitterly contested race, Mr. Merritt was defeated in his bid for mayor last month by Councilman Ed Zimmerman by a vote of 181-163. In addition, council candidates Dan Harrington and Bill Hallman, who were running as a slate with Mr. Zimmerman, defeated the council candidates aligned with Mr. Merritt, Councilwoman Eileen Uhrik and Mary Regan-Seither.
Mr. Merritt said Monday that council deliberations have become too personal.
"When there were issues and ideas on the table, if you disagreed with them, it was seen as a personal attack on the author of them," Mr. Merritt said. "That’s just ludicrous. It doesn’t allow for debate."
Under state law, the Borough Council has 30 days to fill the vacancy left by Mr. Merritt’s resignation.
Since he was elected as an unaffiliated candidate, the entire Borough Council is charged with coming up with three candidates to fill the vacancy. Normally it would be the candidate’s affiliated party that would be charged with coming up with replacement candidates.
At Monday’s Borough Council meeting, the procedure for filling the vacancy was finalized.
Interested residents are encouraged to contact Mayor George Morren or one of the five sitting Borough Council members for consideration. The mayor and each council member will have until 5 p.m. Friday to submit the name of one nominee to the borough clerk, who will then prepare a list of all the nominees, along with contact information and a brief biography, and send it to the mayor, council members and the media.
At the Dec. 18 council meeting, each of the nominees will have an opportunity to speak. Discussion will then be opened to the public, after which the council will entertain motions for formal nominations. The first nominee to receive three votes will fill the seat, and be sworn in immediately.
Mr. Merritt said prior to Monday’s meeting he would not recommend a specific person to fill his seat, though he said his running mates in the recent race for council Ms. Regan-Seither and Councilwoman Uhrik should be considered.
"I’ll leave that up to them (the council)," Mr. Merritt said. "It’s not my place to decide on that."
Mr. Zimmerman, who will take over as mayor in January, said he was disappointed to see Mr. Merritt leave the council.
"He has a lot of years of service," Mr. Zimmerman said. "His experience could have been useful."
Mr. Zimmerman pointed out that if a candidate is not chosen within the 30-day window, the seat will remain open until next November. He added that he personally had spoken to 25 to 30 borough residents about the position.
Mr. Merritt said serving the people of Rocky Hill is what he is going to miss most.
"I like serving Rocky Hill," he said. "But I have to consider my family and my own well-being. It’s a shame. I really enjoyed being on council."
He said he enjoyed dealing with issues raised by borough residents and enjoyed working on a number of interlocal agreements. But most of all, he enjoyed working on open government, he said.
"My one goal when I came on last year was working toward open government," he said. "Before I got on, no one talked about open government. At least I got that out as an issue. People are watching what they do more."

