The May 13 non-partisan municipal election will be a rematch of sorts, with seven candidates seeking five seats on the Township Commission – and with the usual friendly, yet underground race for mayor, a post that traditionally goes to the top vote-getter.
In 2020, thirteen candidates ran in an all-VBM election conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, all five incumbents are seeking re-election, along with two candidates who lost four years ago.
In the last election, incumbents Mauro Tucci and Joseph Scarpelli tied with 4,586 votes each. They agreed to each serve two years as mayor, with Tucci going first.
Al Petracco finished third with 4,549 votes, just 37 votes behind Tucci and Scarpelli. Thomas Evans received 3,379 votes in his re-election bid and was never in contention to become mayor.
All four were incumbents in 2020: Tucci was first elected in 2000, Evans in 2003, and Petracco in 2008; Scarpelli was first elected in 2008 when his father stepped down after 25 years in office.
The one open seat was captured by John V. Kelly III, a U.S. Army veteran and JAG officer whose grandfather was a popular Nutley mayor and assemblyman. The incumbent, Steven L. Rogers, who had run for governor in 2017, did not seek re-election.
Kelly edged out Maria Hamlin, a retired police officer and U.S. Air Force veteran, by 52 votes, 2,2922 to 2,870. Kelly won on his second try: he finished 593 votes behind Rogers in 2016.
The sixth candidate is Lorenzo Marchese, a chiropractor who finished 11th in the 2020 race.
Scarpelli, a former Essex County freeholder, had been mayor from 2000 to 2005, Petracco was mayor from 2012 to 2016, and Scarpelli was mayor again from 2016 to 2020. Joanne Cocchiola, now a Superior Court Judge, was mayor from 2004 to 2012.
Traditionally, Nutley Commission has had little turnover – especially when newspaper publisher Frank Orechio was the town’s political boss. Both of his brothers served in local office: Carl Orechio served from 1956 to 1968, followed by Carmen Orechio from 1968 to 2008, Both Orechio’s served in the legislature: Carl as a Republican assemblyman from 1972 to 1982 – he ousted Ralph Caputo in the 1971 primary; and Carmen as Democratic state senator from 1974 to 1992. Carmen Orechio served as Senate President and was a three-time mayor.