Governor Phil Murphy has nominated Newark Business Administrator Eric Pennington to the seat of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.
He will succeed Robert Udin, former Bergen County Republican Commissioner and Sports Authority Commissioner for 12 years.
Murphy also named former Congressman John Armert (D-Buena), who lost his seat last year, to the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
Pennington has been Mayor Ras Baraka’s business administrator since 2018. He served as law clerk for Chief Justice Robert Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court and Justice Damon Keith of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former member of the National Commission of Inquiry.
Governor Chris Christie nominated Eudin to the seat of the Department of Sports in early 2010.
Eudin, who served as county chairman in 2009, said the nation’s Xanadu, a failed construction complex in the Meadowlands that faced a 15-year long delay and multiple owners, before The American Dream finally opened in 2019. I wanted an investigation.
In recent years, Eudin has emerged as the leader of a group of Bergen County Republicans opposing President Donald Trump. He endorsed Senator Bob He Menendez in his 2018 and Congressman Josh He endorsed Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) in 2018 and his 2020.
Some believed that Eudin’s support for elected Democrats might allow him to retain his position.
Murphy originally sought to remove Eudin in 2019, but agreed to hold him for another year through an agreement with then-state Senator Gerald Cardinale (Republican Demarest). In an effort to gain the approval of Bergen County Democratic Party Speaker Lewis Stellart, Murphy withdrew Stellart’s nomination for Eudin’s seat, instead replacing former Congressman Michael Ferguson (R-Warren) with Stellart. nominated.
As a 26-year-old U.S. Navy veteran from Belleville in 1965, Udin began campaigning for a seat in the state legislature. At the time, Essex County had nine of his seats in the House of Commons elected indiscriminately.
Governor Richard J. Hughes defeated Essex Senator Wayne Dumont, Jr. (R-Phillipsburg) by 61%, with Democrats sweeping all nine seats. That year, four Republican incumbents lost their re-elections, and Eudin won his 108,416 votes, placing him 16th among 28 candidates and congressman William Everett (R-West). Caldwell) by just 35 votes.