Letter to the Editor: Castelize Withdraws from Freeholder Race

June 13, 2012

Dear Residents of Mercer County:

I am writing to let you know that effective today I have withdrawn my name from the race for Mercer County Freeholder. My decision to seek the office was an extension of a commitment I made in the year 2010 to advocate for the residents of Mercer County and the open and accessibility of the county government here in Mercer.

For the last thre years I have been crafting a plan to do this. Unfortunately, the change of leadership in the Mercer County Republican Party and the people that are behind the scenes in the Mercer GOP are standing in the way of me doing just this. At this time I am exploring my options as to how to proceed from this point forward in future years.

I am not stepping away from my pledge to be a watchdog of the county government and to that I will be keeping my website – castelizeformercer.com – up and running, and via my blog on this site I will be calling out the current administration on their inefficiencies and problems.

My first act on this site is that I am placing up a ticker, starting with today, counting down the days till the county government allows access to their meeting minutes via an online platform since my call to them via my press release on April 16, 2012. I have made this call many times in the past three years, and I think it is high time that they act upon it. Today, June 13, 2012, is 58 days since this years call went out.

I look forward to serving you in some capacity in the future and thank you for the conversations and openness that you have extended me in the past.

Yours Truly,

Jim Castelize