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Celeste Riley

Current County Clerk Celeste Riley is running for re-election this year. She is currently serving her second term, which means she inherently has more experience in this position than her Republican challenger, Commissioner Lods. She was an Assemblywoman in the 3rd district, having won re-election for that position, and served several committee positions during her tenure in that position. She has served as both a Bridgeton City Council member and the Bridgeton City Council president. A facebook post on August 13th states that her agenda will include streamlining county services, implementing transparency and accountability, and implementing community engagement. A more recent facebook post and a recent radio show she conducted also point out that during her term she opened a satellite clerk's office at the Cumberland Mall, 'expanded transaction', 'online services', 'voter registration and VBM', 'secured election technology', digitized deeds and mortgages, and restored/preserved historic records to 1748 (we put some of those things in quotes because we're not quite sure what some of those things mean). We have reached out to her for clarifications on overall agenda, policy, and comparisons to her challenger, but we are still working out whether she will provide information directly to us for concerns regarding potential partisanship on our part. During the process of trying to contact candidates for election related information, we reached out to her offices several times and were able to get useful contact information. As of now 9/1/2024, there have been some issues regarding the Clerk's office such as the design of the ballot and how office literature is supposed to be neutral voting information potentially being presented as expensive campaign material. You can view the aforementioned radio show with Capizola and Austino here. It also seems as though they have been posting more regular information in their faebook group, so be sure to follow that if you'd like to stay current. Similarly, the Cumberland NJ Dems have been regularly posting as well. Click the x at the top red of this box to go back to the page.

Celeste Riley

Running for:
Cumberland County Clerk
Incumbent
Challenger

Websites

This election is on November 5th, 2024

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Agenda

Current Agenda per facebook post

  • Streamline services to make them more accessible and efficient
  • Transparency and accountability to ensure open and honest communication with the public
  • Community engagement through active listening and addressing the needs of residents
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PRIOR Agendas

  • Investing in Higher Education to promote economic development
  • Bringing jobs to high-unemployment areas
  • Improve K-12 public education
  • Promoting shared services and public-private partnerships to make New Jersey a more affordable place to live.
  • The New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act Act
  • Social Justice Advocate
  • Women's Rights Advocate
  • Sponsored bills on Crime Victims rights, Financial Empowerment, domestic violence, gender pay gap, workplace discrimination
  • Helped promote NJ's wine industry and was named "Legislator of the Year" by The Garden State Wine Growers
  • Won "Person of the Year Award" from Salem County's Women's Services for domestic violence and sexual assault legislation
  • Won "Citizen of the Year" award from Salem County Chamber of Commerce for economic development efforts
  • Worked on "Building a Better Bridgeton" initiative, a community involved effort to clean up the city

party messaging

To be clear, with the lack of a proper newspaper providing thorough, professional-level election coverage, both sides of the aisle in *local* politics seem to be suffering from a lack of clear messaging. This is not to say that they aren't putting forward a lot of effort to message, but the information is oftentimes scattered across the internet, spoken about at meetings/events that appear partisan or have expensive sponsorship fees, or mentioned at lengthy meetings most people simply won't attend. Oftentimes people get brief literature like
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. They also might get vague impressions of what local Republicans or Democrats might believe based on what they know about national politics. While we have been able to gain some information regarding her agenda, there is probably a lot more detail that we could go into about the specifics of the clerk's office and Riley's campaign bid.

policy positions and issues

After reaching out to Riley and receiving a hesitant response due to concerns about potential partisanship on our part, it is unclear how any policy positions she may have relates to the office of County Clerk other than she might be more inclined to push for Democrat policies and agendas in a Republican dominated county.

Riley, Capizola, and Austino also brought up an issue regarding South Ave in Bridgeton while on the campaign trail: Source, however it seems as though the issue is in the process of being handled: Source

experience

  • Current County Clerk, 2nd term
  • Prior Assemblywoman, re-elected twice
  • Higher Education Committee Chair
  • Tourism and Arts Committee Vice-Chair
  • Transportation, Public Works, and Independent Authorities Committee Member
  • Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Vice-Chari
  • Health and Senior Services Committee Member
  • Housing and Local Government Committee Member
  • Both Bridgeton City Council Member and President