Braynard “Bobby” Brown, Neil Chambers, Bill Haskins and Karen Hilton are the four candidates vying for three seats on the South Orange Board of Trustees this spring.
The candidates all filed by the March 8 deadline and their petitions have been verified by the South Orange Village Clerk.
Election day is May 11.
South Orange elections are non-partisan; candidates do not run under a party affiliation. The Board of Trustees is a six-member body with three seats up for election every two years. Terms are for four years. The Village President is elected directly every four years; the next election for Village President takes place in 2023.
Clockwise from top left: Braynard “Bobby” Brown, Neil Chambers, Karen Hilton, Bill Haskins
Brown, Haskins and Hilton are running together. The slate has a Facebook page and website. Hilton is the lone incumbent.
Brown is currently the committee chairperson of the South Orange Community Police Collaborative. Brown previously ran for BOT in 2019, coming in fourth in a competitive field of 9 candidates. Haskins has been the Chair of the South Orange Environmental Commission and Green Team for the past 3 years. As a current Trustee, Hilton chairs the Finance Committee and serves on the Recreation and Public Works committees, and as liaison to the Senior Citizen Advisory Committee, Public Library Board of Trustees, and Citizens Budget Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Management Committee of SOMA Two Towns for All Ages, previously served as chair of the South Orange Public Library board of trustees and co-founded the Foundation for the South Orange Public Library.
Read an announcement from Brown, Haskins and Hilton here.
Neil Chambers, an architect, filed as the “Vote for Kids” ticket and announced his candidacy at a rally organized by the Facebook group SOMA for Safe Return to School in February. Previously, Chambers helped win an award for “parklets” and “rapid lounging” stations from the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commission’s (ANJEC) Environmental Congress in a collaboration between South Orange Village Center and the South Orange Environmental Commission.
Village Green has reached out to Chambers for a candidacy announcement and will publish when it is sent.
