Veteran Union County Commissioner will retire

Longtime Union County Commissioner Bette Jane Kowalski will not seek re-election to an eighth term this fall and will retire after 21 years in office, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.

The leading candidate to replace her is Roselle Park Mayor Joseph Signorello.

Stanley J. Neron, the president of the Elizabeth Board of Education, is expected to run for the set Sergio Granados is vacating to run for the State Assembly.

Signorello was elected mayor in 2018 with 54.5% in a race where incumbent Carl Hokanson, also a Democrat, ran as an independent and received 18%.

Amid speculation that U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was under criminal investigation, Signorello announced in early 2023 that he would challenge Menendez in the Democratic primary. He later switched to a run for Congress in New Jersey’s 7th district but withdrew.

Following the retirement of then-State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) in 2021, Signorello became the Democratic nominee for an open seat.  He lost the general election to Republican Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), then the Assembly minority leader, by seven percentage points.

Neron, a Haitian American,  is the director of the Elizabeth Recreation Department.

Kowalski, a former editor of a monthly foreign affairs magazine, was sworn in as a freeholder in September 2004 after the incumbent, Mary Ruotolo, resigned.