Sullivan Takes Control At County Reorg

Elizabeth Democrat Dan Sullivan is slated to become Union County's top elected official at Noon Sunday during the county Board of Chosen Freeholders' annual reorganization meeting.

Sullivan, who has served as a county freeholder since 1995, is scheduled to be elected freeholder board chairman during the reorganization meeting. The meeting will also see Freeholders Alexander Mirabella of Fanwood and Deborah Scanlon of Union Township take the oath for their fifth terms and Freeholder-elect Mohamed Jalloh of Roselle take the oath for his first three year term. County Surrogate James LaCorte of Elizabeth will take the oath for his third five year term.Scanlon is slated to be elected freeholder vice chairwoman during the meeting.

This will be Sullivan's third time atop the freeholder board. He previously served as freeholder chairman in 1998 and 2000. He will succeed Mirabella, who held the chairmanship in 2009. Sullivan is a former member of the Elizabeth Board of Education and holds an executive position with the state Motor Vehicles Commission in Trenton. It is unclear if Gov.-Elect Chris Christie will be retaining Sullivan in the MVC slot. Sullivan is expected to seek reelection to a sixth full term in 2010. He served a one year appointed term before his 1995 election. He is the most senior freeholder in terms of seniority on the board.

Sullivan will deliver the annual state of the county address during the reorganization meeting. During this speech he will outline his goals for county government during 2010. The freeholder board will also be adopting a temporry county budget and making various appointments to policy making and advisory boards during the meeting. County Democratic Chairwoman Charlotte DeFilippo traditionally serves as mistress of ceremonies for the ceremonial part of the meeting.

The ceremony will be held in the courtroom of county Assignment Judge Karen Cassidy in the county courthouse in Elizabeth.

Scanlon's election to the vice chairmanship is a departure from a recent tradition on the all Democratic freeholder board. The vice chairman traditionally takes the chairmanship the following year and for several years the chairmanship was given to a freeholder who is seeking reelection. Scanlon, who served as freeholder chairwoman in 2003, is not slated to run for reelection until 2012.

Scanlon is a paralegal and former member of the Board of Education in Union Township. She has served Union Township's first lady and was first elected freeholder in 1998. She comes from a political family, as her husband is a former mayor in Union, both her father and mother-in-law, Patrick and Mary, served as members of the State Assembly. Mary Scanlon is one of the first widows to follow their husbands into the State Legislature, winning an election to succeed her husband's interim successor in 1977.

Scanlon, Mirabella and Jalloh won the November election defeating Republican nominees attorney Nicole Cole and Garwood Councilman Anthony Sytko, along with independent candidates Hope Thompson and Karen Geilen. LaCorte defeated attorney Art Zapolski to win another term as the county's chief probate official. Jalloh, an attorney and former assistant county counsel, succeeds Freeholder Chester Holmes of Rahway who declined to seek a fifth term.