By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — Montgomery Mayor Cecilia Birge said she will not complete the final year of her three-year term on the Township Committee if she’s elected to the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders in November.
Last week Mayor Birge received the nomination to run for one of the two three-year freeholder seats to be on the June Democratic primary from the Somerset County Democratic Committee at the county’s Democratic convention.
Mayor Birge, who’s been on the Township Committee since 2003, began serving as mayor in 2007 and was reappointed to the seat in January by her fellow Township Committee members.
The Democratic committee nominated Douglas Singleterry of North Plainfield to run for the other seat in the primary.
Mayor Birge and Mr. Singleterry are likely to face incumbents Peter Palmer of Bernardsville and Bob Zaborowski of Franklin in the general election, both of whom recently earned the nominations from the GOP committee.
Mayor Birge said she only considered running for freeholder a month ago, but that within 20 minutes of thinking about the idea she concluded it was right thing to do.
”The longer I do this local job as mayor the more I realize how much more that the county can do and I think the corrupt park scandals that happened last year was an eye-opener for many people in the county,” Mayor Birge said.
”It’s time for us to install more oversight and be more diligent about how taxpayers’ money is spent,” she said, “and, especially when municipalities face just excruciating budgetary pain, there is a need for more cooperation horizontally and vertically between the municipalities and the county in the form of shared services.”
In 2006, Louise Wilson, another member of the Township Committee, ran for a seat as a Democrat but was not elected to the all-Republican freeholder board.
At the local level in Montgomery, Keith Hovey recently was nominated to run in the Democratic primary for a three-year term on Township Committee by the Montgomery Democratic Organization. Mr. Hovey, an attorney with the firm of Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, is running for the seat currently occupied by Democrat Mike Joye, who will not seek re-election.
”Montgomery is moving forward with important projects such as Skillman Village and we need to manage them wisely,” Mr. Hovey said. “I want to see the township do an even better job as environmental steward, to save dollars and lead by example, and we need to continue to work at alleviating traffic and staying on top of the truck issues.”
He added, “The Montgomery Promenade project is imminent, and will bring short-term construction headaches followed by long-term revenues and intersection improvements. We need to keep a sharp eye on that, and make sure it’s done properly.”
Mr. Hovey earned his bachelor of science degree in nursing at Case Western Reserve University and his law degree at Seton Hall. He serves on Montgomery’s Board of Health. He and his wife, Rebecca Miller, live off Blue Spring Road.
Mr. Joye was elected to a one-year unexpired term that he was sworn into in November 2007. He could not be reached for comment.
