Two more Essex County Commissioners will not seek re-election this year, setting up at least four open seats on the nine-member board in the upcoming primary and general elections.
Romaine Sermons (D-Irvington), an at-large commissioner, and Tyshammie Cooper (D-East Orange), who represents District 3, have told party leaders that they will not compete in next month’s Essex County Democratic convention and will not seek renomination in the June primary.
Two longtime incumbents, Patricia Sebold (D-Livingston) and Brendan Gill (D-Montclair), announced recently that they will retire at the end of their current terms. Both are at-large commissioners.
That leaves three of the four at-large seats open, with Wayne Richardson (D-Newark) as the lone at-large county commissioner seeking re-election.
Sermons, who had previously served as Romaine Greer and then as Romaine Graham, won a 2019 special election convention following the death of Freeholder Lebby Jones. She was the preferred candidate of Irvington Mayor Tony Vauss and a member of the prominent Beasley family. She won a special election in 2019 and was re-elected in 2020 and 2023.
The election of Sheila Oliver as lieutenant governor in 2017 was followed by District 3 Freeholder Britnee Timberlake replacing Oliver in the State Assembly, and former South Orange Village Trustee Janine Bauer being appointed as Timberlake’s interim replacement.
Cooper, then an East Orange councilwoman who had served as chief of staff to Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren, won a November 2018 special election for the remainder of Timberlake’s term. She was re-elected in 2020 and 2023.
District 1 includes the North and East Wards of Newark, along with sections of Central, West and South Wards. District 3 includes East Orange, South Orange, Orange, and part of Newark’s West Ward.
