Your Candidates: County Freeholder, Surrogate and Clerk

Up for grabs this year are two County Freeholder seats, the County Clerk's position and the County Surrogate's spot. Each race is contested with Republicans looking to continue their claim of the top County government spots while Democrats are hoping to hold on.

Bergen County Freeholder

The Republicans are looking to sweep the Democrats off the freeholder board in a race that pits two GOP challengers, Joel Brizzi and Anthony Rottino, against nine-year Democratic incumbent David Ganz and his running mate, Assemblywoman Joan Voss. Also running is Independent Edward Brunner.

Ganz, a former Fair Lawn Mayor has served nine years on the Freeholder Board. A lawyer by trade, he has also authored several books on coin collecting.

Voss has served in the Assembly since 2004 since leaving the Fort Lee council. She chose to run for freeholder after redistricting moved Fort Lee into a new Assembly district.

Brizzi has served on the East Rutherford council for 16 years, where he had several roles including serving on the committee that oversaw development of a new police station. 

Rottino is a licensed builder and an insurance and real estate broker. He is co-owner of Gold's Gyms in Teterboro and Jersey City.

Brunner, of Waldwick, is a Bergen County sheriff's deputy and president of the PBA Local 134.

County Clerk

The County Clerk’s race features a contest between two candidates who previously served as freeholders – Democrat John Hogan and Republican Elizabeth Randall, who was appointed to the clerk’s job on an interim basis in January when  left the position to become County Executive.

Hogan is the former Mayor of Northvale for two terms and five years as a councilman and previously served three months on the Freeholder Board to fill an vacancy. He was the Vice Chairperson of the Bergen County Planning Board, and Bergen County Election Commissioner.

Randall served as the Deputy Attorney General during Gov. Thomas Kean's administration, was an Assemblywoman from 1985 to 1991 and following that became the Bergen County Counsel from 1991-1994 and again from 1999-2002. She was elected to the Bergen County Freeholder Board for a term that lasted from 2003 to 2006.

County Surrogate

For Surrogate, Michael Dressler, a Democrat from Cresskill who has held the job for 15 years, faces a challenge from Republican Andrew Cimiluca of Saddle Brook.

Dressler was elected to the Cresskill Council in 1974 and then as Mayor in 1983. The same year the Board of Freeholders of Bergen County appointed Dressler as counsel to the County of Bergen. Years later, he was appointed counsel to the N.J. Sports and Exposition Authority. By early 1997 he began serving as Surrogate.

The GOP challenger's legal experience includes: Counsel for the Saddle Brook and Garfield Zoning Board's, Counsel for East Rutherford Board of Health, a Public Defender for Clifton Municipal Court, a Prosecutor for the East Rutherford and Central Bergen municipal courts and as Mediator for Passaic County Special Civil Part.