Gloucester County Commissioners-Elect Say No To Chamber Of Commerce Event

Commissioners-elect still have not received an apology from Chamber’s executive committee member

MULLICA HILL – Gloucester County Commissioners-Elect Chris Konawel and Nick DeSilvio are planning to decline an invitation to attend the Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce’s 20^th Annual State of the County Breakfast. The pair agreed Lisa Carney, the Chamber’s immediate past chair and executive committee member, must apologize and resign from the executive committee because of race-based attacks she directed at GCGOP and Commissioners-Elect Chris Konawel and Nick DeSilvio.

At issue is for two consecutive years Gloucester County Republicans chose to skip Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce Meet the Candidates events because of Carney’s insistence on attacking County Commissioner-Elect Nick DeSilvio and other Republicans on social media. More than two weeks after the 2021 election, Carney launched into another race-based attack on the Gloucester County GOP and Commissioners-Elect Chris Konawel and Nick DeSilvio implying they are racists by using hashtags in posts including #whiteprivilege, #raisedasawhitemale and #stopracisminGC.

“Last month our county party chair called on Lisa Carney to apologize and resign her leadership post. To date we have heard no apology and Carney is still listed on the Chamber’s website as a member of the executive committee,” Commissioner-Elect Chris Konawel said. “Absent an apology Chamber officials can forget about seeing us at any of their events.”

“On the ‘Our Mission’ page of the Chamber’s website it clearly states, ‘we have dedicated ourselves to creating an environment of inclusion,” Commissioner-Elect Nick DeSilvio said, “The Chamber’s failure to denounce Carney’s behavior does nothing to create an environment of inclusion. They have obviously failed at their stated mission.”

DeSilvio continued, “Commissioner-Elect Konawel and I will not be attending this event. I suspect other newly elected Republicans will be joining us in skipping Chamber events until Ms. Carney apologizes for her race-based attacks on us.”

“If the Chamber chooses to continue to support Carney by refusing to denounce her angry, hate-filled social media attacks on us we’ll get with the other Republicans who won elections last month and organize our own event to meet local business leaders,” Konawel said.