Tag Archives: Joseph Szostak

Memorial Set for Former Fair Haven Mayor

Former Fair Haven Mayor Joseph Szostak passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 22. He was 81.

The former longtime music professor and creator of the music program at Brookdale Community College,music director and conductor of the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra, conductor of the Monmouth Conservatory Youth Chorus and music critic for the Red Bank Register made Fair Haven his home for 35 years before relocating to Caldwell seven years ago. It is there, at at Paul Ippolito-Dancy Memorial, 9 Smull Ave., where there will be a service to honor Szosktak on Sunday, Feb. 26, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Szostak served as Fair Haven mayor for one four-year term, from 2002 to 2006. As a resident of Fair Haven, he was also a social member of the Fair Haven Volunteer Fire Company.

He was known as a man who treasured his family, good food, traveling, outdoors and Fair Haven. Szostak, his family said in his obituary, was “a generous, kind, gregarious, sensitive man whose door was always open to whoever needed his help. He made the world a brighter place with his humor, warmth, and love.”

Surviving are: his loving children, Martin and his wife, Gayle McCarthy, Phillip, and David and his wife, Jennifer; cherished grandchildren, Grace and Leo, and former wife, Barbara Armbruster.

He was predeceased by: his siblings, Anna, Florence, Helen, Mildred, Frank and John Szostak.

Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect is preparing a memorial tribute to Szostak. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] with comments and/or photos. Thank you! RIP, Mayor Szostak. You are remembered.

Dem Breaks GOP Hold on Fair Haven Council

By Elaine Van Develde

The unofficial results are in and they’re showing that, for the first time in more than a decade, the all-Republican hold on Fair Haven’s governing body has been broken.

Newcomer to the local political scene, Aimee Humphreys, has unseated longtime Republican incumbent Jerome Koch.

With what was considered a good voter turnout for mid-term elections at the borough polls, according to Monmouth County Board of Elections’ results tally, Humphreys beat Koch by more than 100 votes — her 1079 to his 963.

The high vote getter in the council race was Susan Sorensen, who won her second three-year seat on the dais with 1,216 votes, or roughly 37 percent to Humphreys’ approximate 33.

Total votes cast for the council race were 3,268.

There were five write-ins. And as “unofficial” results dictate, provision and absentee ballots have not all been counted.

Republican Mayor Ben Lucarelli has won his uncontested bid for re-election with 1,354 votes. There were 25 write-ins.

The last time the GOP hold on the dais was broken was when Joseph Szostak won his independent bid for mayor in 2002. He served one term through 2006 when former Mayor Michael Halfacre won the mayoral election.

He served until 2012, or one-and-a-half terms, when he stepped down upon being appointed by Gov. Chris Christie to serve as director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Watch for a follow-up interview with the newest member of the governing body and Sorensen.