Election Day has passed and the voters of Morris County have chosen to maintain a Republican Morris
County Board of Chosen Freeholders. On behalf of my running mates, thank you for your continued confidence. Our success can be attributed to the hard work of the candidates who have agreed to serve and stood for election this November. I consider public office a noble calling, as do many of my colleagues. We sacrifice time with our families, our privacy and quality of life to serve our community.

Unfortunately, the leadership of our Morris County Republican Party is less interested in recruiting good, solid public servants with the best intentions. Rather, the Morris County Republican Committee has chosen to support the ambitions of opportunists looking for power and title. Much to others’ disappointment, I do not follow the party leaders’ orders but rather embrace good ideas regardless of whose idea it is and encourage spirited debate on the merits. So many logical, smart and innovative ideas die on the vine as a result of our Morris Republican Leadership’s abject failure.

Rather than run campaigns based on the shared values of our party: tax fairness, robust economy and support to keep our communities livable and attractive for our families, county GOP leadership would rather push inferior candidates and risk losing elections to others with questionable interests. So flawed and incompetent are these leaders that the primary election cost exceeded our general election campaign by a factor of five. These funds, contributed by our many supporters and friends to promote solid leadership, could have been put to better use such as cultivating future candidates. Despite the obstacles erected by our own party leaders, the incumbent Republican candidates prevailed.

This is particularly vexing when the Morris County Republican Committee failed to raise funds or provide meaningful support to the Republican candidates in the general election. In the past, we could count on the Chairman and the Committee to provide funding as well as volunteers to support the Republican cause in November. This year the support was minimal and left most people wondering what had happened to our Grand Old Party.

We need true party leaders: consensus builders and those that can effectively and efficiently articulate an intelligent platform based on our shared values. In today’s negatively-charged political environment, voters are tired of nastiness and petty character assassinations too prevalent in our seemingly endless campaign seasons.

So today, I am calling for the resignation of our party leadership. As the Morris County Republican Party will meet to select officials to serve in positions left vacant in this past election, the time is right and the need to replace misguided and ineffective leadership is even more necessary. It is time to rebuild our
caucus from the ground up, lest we continue to lose positions on the national and local stage.