PRINCETON — The Good Government Coalition of New Jersey (GGCNJ) has endorsed candidates for County Freeholders across the state, in Cumberland, Hudson, Morris, Union, and Essex counties.

All endorsed candidates are champions for their communities, running to be a voice for their fellow citizens with a clear commitment to transparency, fairness and accountability to a diversity of stakeholders.

Elected at the county level, Freeholders serve in a similar role to Mayor and Councilmembers of local municipalities, with jurisdiction over county-level facilities and infrastructure. Your freeholders are responsible for your county roads, libraries, parks, technical schools, community colleges, county police, correctional facilities, and more. The budget that they oversee – funded by your property tax dollars – may be larger than that of your municipality. Yet, few think deeply about who their freeholders are.

GGCNJ calls on citizens to elect freeholders with care. Freeholders are an essential part of our local government, the importance of which has only been underscored by the current COVID-19 crisis.

Every candidate endorsed by GGCNJ has made firm commitments to good government principles of rigorous and fiscally responsible contract vetting, competitive bidding where possible, professionalism as an elected official, openness and accessibility of meetings and budgets to scrutiny by the public, responsible county entity oversight, and ensuring a diversity of voices on boards, authorities and commissions. They have also committed to taking a firm stand against the county line, which subverts elections in New Jersey and hurts our democracy and our public interest.

So far GGCNJ has enthusiastically endorsed Jack Surrency, Donna Pearson and Tracey Wells-Huggins in Cumberland County, Ron Bautista and Eleanna Little in Hudson County, Charlie Baranski in Morris County, Aissa Catherine Heath and Hector Meneses Jr. in Union County, Jennifer Larsen, Simone Jelks-Bandison and Sabre Burroughs in Essex County, and more Freeholder endorsements are forthcoming. For more information on the platforms and missions of these candidates, visit ggcnj.org/Endorsements2020.

The GGCNJ is a nonpartisan, grassroots group whose mission is to strengthen democracy by working with residents across our state to bring greater transparency, accountability, and participation to our state and local governments. In the 2020 election, GGCNJ is endorsing candidates for county-level offices that have substantial good-government implications (County Clerk, Freeholder and County Chair). Endorsements are determined based on responses to a 10-point pledge, and multiple candidates for a given position may receive GGCNJ endorsements. To be considered for an endorsement, email contact@ggcnj.org.