Quiet year in South Orange, with no contest for local offices

There won’t be any campaign in South Orange this year, with Village President Sheena Collum and a slate of three candidates for Village Trustee running unopposed in the May non-partisan municipal election.

Collum was re-elected in 2019 with 76% of the vote against Deborah Davis Ford, an incumbent trustee and the clerk of the Essex County Board of Commissioners.

In the trustee race, Summer Jones is the only incumbent seeing re-election.  Donna Collier and Stephen Schnall are not seeking re-election; their apparent successors are Jennifer Greenberg and Olivia Lewis-Chang.

Four years ago, the Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association Locals 40 and 240 backed Ford against Collum after she supported a move to merge the village’s fire department with next-door Maplewood.

Collum was first elected in 2015 with 70% of the vote against Emily Hynes after the incumbent, Alex Torpey, declined to seek re-election.  Torpey was elected at age 24, defeating Trustee Janine Bauer by 13 votes.