Kevin Meara has no regrets.
And that’s why he feels his decision not to run for re-election to Hamilton council hasn’t fazed him nearly as much as he thought it would.
“It was a difficult decision, but once I made up my mind, it was easy,” Meara said.
Meara has sat on council as a Republican since 2008, after serving in the same position as a Democrat in the 1990s. He won re-election in 2011, and became council president in 2012. That year, scandal tore the township apart after the federal government issued five counts of corruption-related charges against Mayor John Bencivengo.
Bencivengo resigned after being found guilty in a federal district court late in November 2012, and Meara ascended to the mayor’s office for 10 action-packed days. As interim mayor, he fired longtime township business administrator John Ricci, announced his intentions to launch a forensic audit of the township government and hired retired Hamilton Police officer Anthony Recine as township public safety director. The mayor has served in that role traditionally.
On Nov. 30, 2012, the final day of his tenure as mayor, Meara stormed out of a special session of council held to elect a new mayor. Without Meara, council voted to make then-council vice president Kelly Yaede mayor. Ultimately, Yaede reversed every decision Meara made.
Meara said he thought his actions as interim mayor were “very fair” and “very respectful.” But he said his week-plus tenure as township CEO also distanced him from the other four Republicans on council.
“It was clear I wasn’t going to be at the top of their list,” Meara said. “If you’re in this game long enough, you come to expect it. It wasn’t a determining factor in what I do. If I listen to the general public, I’d probably still be running. I still feel like there’s a lot of public support for what I do.”
Meara said he actually started the screening process with Republicans to run again this fall, but made his decision to withdraw a few days later. A trip to Washington, D.C. convinced him it was the right decision.
He said the prospect of a primary did not scare him, but he didn’t feel like he could fully devote himself to a campaign. Meara still has eight months remaining on his council term, but he already knows what he’ll do with his time once the term expires. He has been involved with Irish diplomatic issues and the Wounded Warrior Project. And he spends a large chunk of his time working on raising awareness of drug addiction and support for addicts and their families through City of Angels, a foundation he helped create.
Meara hasn’t ruled out returning to public life. For now, though, Meara has paused a political career he called “historic.”
“I’m not closing the door on politics,” Meara said. “I’ve been in office for half of the last 24 years. Politicians stay too long sometimes. It was just my time.”
