Dear Editor:
Reviving the year and a half old Justin Musella speeding ticket incident is just another blatant attempt by Team Barberio to force him out of the Republican mayoral primary in June. The first attempt occurred when Morris County GOP Chair, Laura Ali, who just months ago described Mayor Barberio as “the highest paid and least qualified mayor in Morris County” (Daily Record, Jan. 10, 2025, by William Westhoven), asked Musella to drop out of the primary in the name of party unity and the need to focus on winning the general election. This happened shortly after she unexpectedly switched allegiance from Musella to Barberio. Within days after that failed, the GOP chair tightened the screws by lining up every Republican mayor and county official in Morris County to endorse Mayor Barberio. As a last resort, Team Barberio has turned to digging up dirt from an anonymously acquired police videocam and using what has now become known as lawfare to initiate some ethics investigation against Musella.
Supposedly, Musella used his political influence to avoid getting a speeding ticket. At the time of the incident, Musella said, “I was pushing her (his wife) to go a little fast.” Unless you can read minds, interpreting that statement as a threat or a bribe is an unsubstantiated reach. It may be, as I believe, that he was trying to accept blame for putting his wife into the predicament that she was in.
It is inconceivable that the mayor would devote so much time and effort to depriving the Republican voters of Parsippany of the opportunity to choose the candidate of their choice in a primary. There is a clear difference in ideas between the mayor and the councilman, and the voters deserve to decide whose ideas are better.
Bob Venezia
