Scherer's Retirement

There are time-honored retirement strategies for politicians.

You know the drill: John (or Jane) Doe is retiring/stepping down/not running again so that he (or she) can spend more time with their families/ businesses/personal interests. Whatever the exact reason, it involves getting back to their roots after years of selfless public service.

According to the front page of the Hillsborough Beacon of October 19, 2006, Somerset County Freeholder Ken Scherer invoked that tradition, announcing he would be “stepping down at the end of the year to focus on his new business venture.”

For those not from the area, Scherer, a Hillsborough resident, has two landscape-related family businesses and the new-but-related business Garden State Deer Proofing.

But… reading further into the article we find Scherer pointing out that in the future he would certainly consider higher office such as the NJ State Assembly – if the opportunity presented itself.

Well, lo-and-behold, buried inside the Beacon of January 25, 2007 – 12 weeks later - we find the announcement that Ken Scherer will seek the suddenly open 16th Legislative District Assembly seat.

There was no comment from any of the local press or even the trolls on the local forums. I missed any letters to the editor commenting on the brevity of Mr. Scherer’s retirement from politics.

Have the citizens become so jaded or just fed-up with politics that they are ignoring it all or do they just not care anymore?

Or, worst case for Mr. Scherer, didn’t anyone notice?

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A few local forum posters woke up. They pointed out that if “commuting” to the Freeholders’ meetings in Somerville was too time consuming to allow Mr. Scherer to run his business, how on earth would he handle the time involved in traveling to Assembly meetings in Trenton.

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Apparently the Somerset County Republican Convention did not want to be responsible for the future of the Scherer family business. This past Thursday Scherer’s opponent Freeholder Denise Coyle was voted in as the party’s official candidate for the District 16 Assembly seat by 182-74.