Veteran Republican Freeholders Dan Beyel and Ralph Sheets will not have to work too hard to keep their seats this year. They will apparently run unopposed.
As of the filing deadline 4 p.m. Monday, April 7, no Democratic candidates had filed for a spot on the ballot for the county’s governing body.
The freeholder board is entirely Republican. In the lead up to Monday’s filing deadline, Jim Pickering, the Cape May County Democratic leader, had said the committee was looking for candidates, but did not have any names. However, he said there would be a full slate of candidates this year. But according to officials with the county clerk’s office, no Democrats had filed by the deadline.
Pickering could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday afternoon. He did not respond to a request for an interview from the week before, either.
Beyel, the freeholder director, has served on the board since 1987. Sheets, a former Wildwood police chief, was first elected to the county board in 1990.
There will be a race for the county sheriff’s office, with incumbent Sheriff John Callinan, a retired Superior Court judge, deciding not to seek a second term.
Gary Schaffer, the director of the county Police Academy, is the Republican nominee, and will face Democrat George J. Hallett, who recently served as a detective in the county prosecutor’s office.