In Morris Plains, Democrats turn on their own mayor

Morris Plains waited 32 years for a Democratic mayor.  Now his own party wants him out.

Two-term Mayor Jason Karr is getting primaried by Councilwoman Nancy Verga, with the blessing of the municipal Democratic organization.

A majority of that 19-member body last week endorsed Verga for the June 2, 2026, primary, along with Democratic council hopefuls Lee Connor and Rosaria DeNova.

“There is quite a bit of frustration in the community” with the mayor, said borough Democratic Chairperson Tina Genest.

The Republicans won’t announce their slate until the March 23 candidate filing deadline, said municipal GOP Chair Alice Collopy.

If Karr is toppled in the primary, his political demise almost certainly will be traced to December 2024, and a stormy planning board meeting where he voted, as fate would have it, with the iconic Republican he succeeded as mayor in 2019.

“One more year!” an angry resident shouted when Karr sided with a McDonald’s drive-through for Speedwell Avenue. Frank Druetzler, known to generations as “Uncle Frank” in the “Community of Caring” — a slogan he helped create — cast the pivotal vote for the project.

Karr, who also is waiting until next week’s filing deadline to confirm his candidacy, said McDonald’s wasn’t his favorite option for downtown. But a borough ordinance allowed it, he said Tuesday, and “I can sleep at night.”

“You have to follow the law, and it can’t go on opinion. And I did do that,” said Karr, a former councilman whose historic mayoral election followed Druetzler’s retirement.

A judge in January upheld the Dec. 18, 2024, planning board vote. Residents are appealing that decision. A grassroots group, Plan Better Morris Plains, emerged from the McDonald’s hearings, driving demands for more transparent government, Verga said.

There has been “a crisis of confidence. So people have been coming to meetings more, expressing their disappointment in decisions of the mayor and planning board,” she said. On the council in 2023, she voted against the rezoning ordinance that paved the way for McDonald’s

Elected last year to a third term, Verga is retired from corporate communications. She said she has worked to upgrade the borough website, enhance the municipal e-newsletter, launch a Facebook page and conduct online surveys. Council meetings have been restructured to better accommodate residents, and livestreams are coming, she said.

As mayor, Verga continued, she would strive to boost accountability by addressing ambiguities about responsibilities of the mayor and council in the borough’s form of government. A part-time administrator might be phased in over time, she said, funded by attrition of borough employees. She also is open to exploring less costly ways of modernizing police facilities, after voters rejected a bond referendum last fall.

“I think people trust me because they see that I listen…to their concerns,” said Verga, a 23-year borough resident who raised four children there.

Karr, who works for the Morristown public works department, pointed with pride to the borough’s tax base finally surpassing a 2009 high of $1.45 billion. After the loss of the Honeywell headquarters and other office closures, that is “a monumental feat. And it just shows that you’re doing something correct,” Karr said.

The mayor also cited a housing project built when he was a councilman, 54 units all designated as affordable, on Tabor Road. It was a challenging engineering feat and a “collaborative effort,” he said, adding: “To see a hole in the ground, and see families happy and living in there (now) is, you know, very gratifying.”

Karr and Verga both were interviewed by the borough Democratic committee before it made its endorsement.

POLITICAL SHIFT

The borough’s population has grown by nearly 20 percent since 2010, to an estimated 6,590 (2024), according to U.S. Census data. That growth has brought a political shift in what was long a Republican bastion.

Democrats won a council majority for the first time in 2024. Rewind to 2011, and registered Republicans (43 percent) and Independents (35 percent) held a big edge over registered Democrats (22 percent). Fast-forward to last year’s primary, and borough Democrats outnumbered their GOP counterparts — albeit by less than 100 voters. Both parties now outnumber Independents.

Connor and DeNova hope to continue the Democrats’ momentum.

A co-founder of Plan Better Morris Plains, Connor has been active in civic life for most of her 30 years in the borough. She is a former president of the Morris Plains Board of Education and the Morris County School Boards Association, and helped raise more than $150,000 for school programs while leading the Education Foundation of Morris Plains, according to the borough Democratic organization.

Connor has promoted area nonprofits as a member of Impact100 Garden State, and has worked in corporate communications. She and her husband Mike have raised two children who graduated from local schools.

DeNova has lived in Morris Plains for two decades with her husband Steve and their two kids. She has worked in business development, IT systems architecture and project management, and is a small business owner, according to her bio.

She founded the Morris Plains Moms Facebook group and serves on the Morris Plains Farmers Market committee. Her efforts combating substance abuse as a member of the Municipal Alliance earned her 2025 Morris County Volunteer of the Year honors from the New Jersey Governor’s Council on Substance Use Disorders.

The terms of Republicans Sal Cortese, who is council president, and Art Bruhn Jr. are up this year. Morristown Green has reached out to them for comment.