By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Tuesday’s primary election bodes to be a quiet affair.
Locally, Republicans and Democrats each have two candidates for the two three-year Borough Council seats that will be decided in November.
For the GOP, Susan Asher seeks renomination, and former Councilman Richard Onderko looks to return to Borough Council. For the Democrats, former Councilman Frank Jurewicz and local party chairman Alan Harwick look to be their party’s nominees.
At the top of the ticket, voters will choose candidates for governor. Republican incumbent Chris Christie and Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono have one lesser-known challenger apiece for those nominations.
Each party will nominate formally candidates for state Senate, Assembly, sheriff and freeholder. Each office in both parties has just one name on the ballot.
Incumbent councilman Lou Petzinger and former Councilwoman Sherri Lynn both were passed over by the borough GOP screening committee, but did not file. Ms. Lynn opted not to run for re-election to a second term last year.
Mr. Harwick, an attorney with his own firm in Bedminster, has said it was possible he might withdraw his name and have the Democrats substitute another name for the November ballot.
For the last year, Mr. Jurewicz has chaired the regional Raritan-Millstone Rivers Flood Control Commission, which was organized by nine municipalities and the county in 2012.
Mr. Jurewicz, a computer system engineer for the last 32 years at Johnson and Johnson Corporation, was on the Borough Council from 1997-2000 and lost a bid for council in 2010. He’s also served multiple terms on the school board. He has been on the Borough Council, Planning Board or Board of Education almost continuously since 1981.
Mr. Onderko, who works in corporate finance, served one three-year term and was defeated in November.
Ms. Asher, a teacher first elected to the council in 2001, defeated Mayor Lillian Zusa in the GOP primary for mayor in 2011, then lost to Democrat Angelo Corradino that fall.
A majority of Manville voters — actually 54 percent — can go to the polls Tuesday and choose to vote in one party or the other.
A total of 1,358 voters are eligible to participate in the Democratic primary. Just slightly less (1,43) can vote in the Republican primary.
But 2,969 voters are considered unaffiliated, without allegiance to any party. Commonly called independents, they can go to the polls and ask to vote in one party or the other.
From that point on, they will be considered members of that party unless they change their voter status by filing out a form.