Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller announces his candidacy for New Jersey's next governor

On Friday morning, a new YouTube channel appeared on the social media platform, simply named “Sean.” He hosted a single video, which garnered 715 views in the first seven hours.

It begins with a voiceover from outgoing Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller: “Most people don’t expect a high school science teacher to run for governor, because working people aren’t supposed to access at the positions where decisions are made. »

The video brought to life years of gossip and finger-pointing that Spiller was using his place on the Montclair dais, and the presidency of the state’s largest teachers union, as a springboard for higher office.

He also landed just three days after he presided over his final city council meeting before a new administration is sworn in on July 1.

The Democrat enters a massive political playground for New Jersey’s chief executive, which currently includes more widely recognized names, including: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop, 2021 Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, to name a few.

Nonetheless, Spiller’s star rose significantly during the 12 years he spent on the township board, serving two terms as a 3rd Ward councilman and ascending to the mayor’s seat in July 2020, as the first wave of COVID-19 gripped the country.

It was a test Spiller would fail in the eyes of residents who voted him to the top spot on the dais by less than two percentage points, and were soon wondering why he wasn’t running on the municipality’s broadband to conduct daily briefings like so many other locals. and state leaders.

Lawsuit against the municipality

But a few grumbles on social media about his lack of public awareness were hardly enough to turn around his political career. Cracks began to appear in October 2022, when Montclair CFO Padmaja Rao filed a lawsuit accusing then-City Manager Timothy Stafford of ruling the municipality with an iron fist and ‘a ruthless temperament, often aimed at female employees.

The lawsuit included other accusations, including racial discrimination within the fire department, which were kept secret when an internal report from the city’s affirmative action manager was buried in favor of a third-party investigation launched by Spiller himself .

Lawyers outside the city settled the lawsuit a month ago, for $250,000 for Rao and $1 million in legal fees for his attorneys, but Spiller’s refusal to pursue legal action turned his once successful image on himself. The contemplative attitude that served him well as a council member took on an air of stony silence in the face of residents’ constant complaints that his administration lacked transparency.

When the township’s defense attorney subpoenaed one of Spiller’s critics in the Rao trial in April, the Star-Ledger published a scathing editorial headlined: “Something Rotten in Montclair.”

As the questions grew, so did the remnants of accusations from years past. In 2016, he lost his place on the Board of School Estimate, which approves the school district’s annual budget, due to his position as treasurer of the NJ Education Association, which Superior Court Judge Thomas Moore ruled was a conflict of interests.

In 2021, Spiller — a former science teacher at Wayne Valley High School — was named president of the teachers union, deepening questions about its conflicts and, in particular, the source of its significant political war chest.

NJEA funds charges

Accusations that Spiller was misappropriating NJEA funds had been circulating in political circles for some time, until the Sunlight Policy Center released a detailed report last fall on Spiller’s campaign funds, citing two political money groups who had given him $173,000, which the center claimed. came largely from teacher contributions.

After that, Essex County residents began receiving vague mailers for a political action group called “Protecting Our Democracy,” chaired by Spiller, as did a series of even vaguer television commercials that featured voiceovers. distinct and mimed conversations with voters in various locations. campaign advertisements. Fueling speculation that he was considering a run for governor.

Meanwhile, the Sunlight Policy Center continued to haunt Spiller with accusations of embezzlement of millions of dollars from the NJEA kitty through Protecting Our Democracy, which it claims has already raised $2 million for its political ambitions, NJEA PAC and Garden State Forward. That would give Spiller almost as much as Fulop, according to documents filed with the New Jersey Election Law Commission.

In Friday’s announcement, Spiller noted investment in schools among the few explicit policy perspectives mentioned during the ad, along with a working-class economy and platitudes of “change,” “choice » and “giving voice” to the working class. residents rather than “millionaires and Wall Street”.

He pledges to “dedicate (his) efforts to ensuring that hard-working families can afford to live and work in the New Jersey they love.”