Three-term Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella will not seek re-election next year and plans to retire at the end of the year, setting up a possible internal fight over his successor and a potential fight over county commissioner seats occupied by longtime incumbents.
Colabella’s departure sets up a series of immediate changes. Deputy County Clerk John Catalano, a former assemblyman, would become acting county clerk until Gov. Phil Murphy appoints a replacement – and the State Senate confirms his pick – to serve until the November 2025 election results are certified.
County Commissioners John P. Kelly and Gary Quinn are possible candidates for county clerk, although the field could grow over the coming weeks. Kelly starts as the clear favorite.
Kelly, a 72-year-old former Eagleswood mayor, has been a county commissioner for 32 years. Quinn, 68, did not seek re-election to a third term this year after losing party support; he spent fifteen years as a Lacey Township Committeeman and five years on the school board.
If Kelly gets the county clerk post, he won’t seek re-election as county commissioner.
It’s also unclear whether County Commissioner Virginia Haines, 78, will seek re-election to a post she’s held since 2016. A former assemblywoman and state lottery director, Haines has fallen out of favor with her onetime ally, Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore.
If she does run, she undoubtedly faces a primary contest.
Among the possible candidates to run against Haines is Sam Ellenbogen, the head of the Toms River Jewish Community Council and a member of the county’s Orthodox Jewish community. Former County Clerk and County Administrator Carl Block, who spent 26 years as mayor of Stafford, and Little Egg Harbor Township Mayor Ray Gormley are also possible candidates.
Gilmore praised Colabella and indicated that he was on a path to a fourth term if he wanted it.
“He’s a good man, and I’m sorry to see him go,” Gilmore said.
Colabella, 65, is an institution in Ocean County politics. He served as executive director of the Ocean County Republican Organization in 1989 and then joined the County Clerk’s office in 1993 as an executive assistant to County Clerk Dean Haines. He became deputy council clerk in 1999 and was elected county clerk in 2010 after Carl Block left to become county administrator.
He began his political career in 1981 as an intern in the office of Rep. Christopher Smith (R-Manchester), spent four years as an aide to Gov. Thomas H. Kean, and three years at the Division of Motor Vehicles.
“Scott Colabella may not be a household name in New Jersey, but he has an awful lot to do with the reliability and credibility of our elections over the past several decades,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “He has been an essential part of a very small universe of officials who make our elections run smoothly because he sets such a thoroughly professional expectation and example.”
Rasmussen said there was “an irony to Scott coming from one of the state’s most partisan counties and yet serving as a completely nonpartisan official who has helped everyone.” He noted that in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Colabella set up a mobile voting to permit voters who couldn’t make it to their hometowns on the barrier islands to still vote.
“As a fellow Rider alum who shared many of the same professors with Scott, I always took great pride in knowing that he personally scoured the few hundred variations of each election’s ballots to proofread them until his eyes were blurry,” he said. “Given the current focus in Trenton on ballot randomization and rotation, I can’t help but wonder whether the old ballot box he used to draw ballot positions every year will retire with him.”