Column B Democrats are meeting with the public and answering questions about the way they will conduct themselves if voters choose them in the June 6 Democratic primary election.
The team had a forum with Latino residents that was live cast on Facebook, which was arranged by local residents who said the regular political organization slate running on Column A refused to participate in any debates with the challengers.
Column A candidates appear to have gone into hiding since news broke about incumbent Mayor Donald Shaw’s criminal record. The Elizabeth homeowner, Shaw, was convicted of selling heroin in New York but he covered up that fact when he was hired to work with children as the borough recreation director.
RELATED STORY: Cowardly Cryan dodging Democratic debates
Reverend Charles Mitchell and Dr. Myrlene M.A. Thelot are Column B Democratic candidates for the New Jersey General Assembly.
Former Assemblyman Jamel Holley is running for mayor, a post to which he was elected when he was 25 years old in 2011.
Board of Education Commissioner Angela Alvey-Wimbush is a pro-choice Democratic woman who is leading Column B as she battles anti-abortion, pro-gun incumbent Senator Joe Cryan, who has the support of Trump-loving police unions and much of the political establishment.
Travis Amaker is running for Union County commissioner while Pop Warner President Stan Cunningham is making a bid for First Ward councilman.
Mitchell, Thelot, Holley, Alvey-Wimbush and Amaker are giving voters a choice for change in the upcoming June 6 Democratic primary election on Column B.
Holley is an accomplished public servant with 15 years of experience in various local and state-level positions. He earned degrees in Criminal Justice and Public Administration from New Jersey City University and Kean University, respectively.
Alvey-Wimbush is a 3-term Roselle school board commissioner, and a veteran educator with more than two decades experience as a classroom teacher.
Alvey-Wimbush is a pro-choice Democratic woman who strongly supports the right to choose, while her opponent has different views regarding reproductive health. Cryan closed six Planned Parenthood clinics, by casting the deciding 41st vote in the New Jersey General Assembly to pass Republican Governor Chris Christie’s controversial state budget in 2010.
When Holley mounted a primary challenge in 2021, he compared Senator Joseph Cryan to Bull Connor, the notoriously racist public safety commissioner who suppressed peaceful protests by black and white people in Birmingham Alabama with water hoses and dogs during the 1960s civil rights era.
“What Joe Cryan did to Mayor Andrian Mapp and the City of Plainfield is appalling and disgusting,” said Holley, according to published reports. “He is nothing more than a modern-day Bull Connor, pitting African Americans against one another. I’ll be the first to remind Joe that he lives in an 80 percent minority district. Joe Cryan does not represent the 22nd legislative district. He had no authority to ‘bargain’ away a seat that is not vacant.”