The votes are in; and the Republican incumbents in both the Rumson and Fair Haven Borough Council races have kept their seats, according to the unofficial tallies (not counting provisional and absentee ballots) from the Monmouth County Board of Elections.
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At the Polls: Local Elections 2016
It’s election day 2016; and the choices at the polls in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are a mix of longtime incumbents, newcomer challengers and one mainstay …
Fair Haven Borough Council
The incumbents …
Republican sitting councilmen Rowland Wilhelm Jr. and Jonathan Peters are hoping to keep their council seats on the six-member, weak mayor strong borough council form of government dais. There is a lone Democrat serving on the present GOP-dominated council.
Wilhelm and Peters are running on a “Family Friendly — Fiscally Prudent” platform which touts experience, preservation and fiscal responsibility.
The Democratic challengers …
for the two seats up for grabs are Shervyn von Hoerl and Christopher Rodriguez. Rodriguez is relatively new to Fair Haven and von Hoerl ran for mayor last year.
Rodriguez’ wife, Karen, is running for the Fair Haven Board of Education.
The two seek to break the long-time Republican majority on council with what they have said is a non-partisan, unifying mission to serve and represent residents.
Rumson Borough Council
Two seats are up for grabs on the six-member dais in Rumson. The two Republican incumbents, Joseph Hemphill and Laura Attwell are being challenged by Democrat Michael Steinhorn, who has run for local mayoral and council office several times and has made a bid for Monmouth County Surrogate as well as clerk.
Hemphill, a longtime resident, has served on council for 10 years. Atwell, also a longtime resident, has served for the past three.
The two, according to their campaign brochure are running on a platform of experience and accomplishment.
Atwell has served as the council’s liaison for the borough’s Department of Public Works and the Historic Preservation Commission.
Fair Haven Board of Education
There are five candidates running for the three Fair Haven Board of Education seats up for grabs on the nine-member dais. They are: Karen Rodriguez, Carol Lang, Sherri D’Angelo, incumbent Marisa Coar and Ellen Iovino.
The only seated BOE member who is running again is Marisa Coar. Michael Bernstein and Jeff Spector’s terms expire in December of 2016. Both opted to not run again.
Rumson Board of Education
There are two uncontested seats up for grabs on the nine-member board in Rumson. They are those of: Diane MacGillis and Elaine Melia.
The BOE Votes: Mancuso Loses FH Bid for Third Term
By Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven Board of Education President Mark Mancuso has lost his bid for re-election, leaving contenders Bennett Coleman, Michelle Buckley and Charlie Jakub filling the three seats up for grabs on the nine-member board.
Mancuso first came to the board by filling an unexpired term five years ago. He will be finishing the end of his second full term on the dais by the year’s end.
The highest vote-getter in the election, which brought out 3,299 voters, was Coleman, with 847. Buckley garnered 655 votes and Jakub 632, according to the unofficial tallies of the Monmouth County Clerk’s Office.
Five vied for the three seats. In addition to Mancuso, Marisa Coar did not win her bid for election. She won 615 votes, or roughly 19 percent, while Mancuso had the least amount of votes cast on his ballot — 540, or about 16 percent.
There were 10 write-ins.
Rumson
The race for three board seats in the Rumson School District was uncontested.
Three ran for three seats.
With a total of 1,595 votes cast, John Connors got the highest number of votes, 533, or more than 33 percent. Charles ”Chuck” Jones III won 532, or just more than 33 percent. And Margaret Simons got 514 votes, or 32 percent, the vote tallies of the Clerk’s Office said.
There were 16 write-ins.
Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School
With three seats up for grabs, only two incumbent candidates ran uncontested to fill them.
Lourdes Lucas and Sarah Maris (both representing Fair Haven) won new terms with 874 and 869 votes, respectively.
Teresa Liccardi, M.D., Rumson representative, did not seeking re-election.
So, there will be an empty seat to be filled.
There were 55 write-ins for that seat.
Fair Haven Votes: GOP Incumbents Keep Seats
By Elaine Van Develde
Republican incumbents kept their seats on Fair Haven Borough Council by a comfortable margin, with 2,339 votes cast, or more than half the estimated 4,000 registered voters in the borough.
With newcomer Democrat Shervyn von Hoerl vying for one of the two three-year governing body terms up for grabs, a win for him would have put a long-unprecedented two Democrats on the dais.
He did not succeed. The challenger, von Hoerl ended up with 621 votes, or nearly 27 percent of the vote.
The high vote-getter in the race was Councilman Eric Jaeger, with 876, or more than 37 percent.
Jaeger’s running mate Robert Marchese won his third term to council with 834 votes, or roughly 36 percent.
There were eight write-ins.
Fair Haven’s form of government is a Borough Council form. In this form of municipal government, there are six council members with three-year terms and a mayor with a four-year term.
While the mayor presides over meetings, he does not vote, unless to break a tie.
The mayor does, however, have veto power.
Rumson Votes: Ekdal is Mayor Again, Uncontested Council
By Elaine Van Develde
Familiar challenger Michael Steinhorn tried again, but did not succeed in ousting longtime Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl.
With 864 votes cast in the mayoral race, Ekdahl ended up with 565 of them, or more than 65 percent.
Steinhorn, a Democrat who has long attempted to break the longtime Republican stronghold on the governing body, garnered 294 votes, or 34 percent.
There were five write-in candidate votes.
Ekdahl will begin his fourth four-year term as mayor in January.
Incumbent Republican Borough Councilmen Marc Rubin and John Conklin won uncontested three-year seats on the dais, garnering 623 and 629 votes, respectively. A total of 1,276 votes were cast for the council race.
There were 24 write-ins.
Rumson is run with a Borough Council, or Mayor and Council form of government.
As with Fair Haven, the governing body has six council members and a presiding mayor. The mayor runs the meetings, but does not vote unless there is a tie.
He has veto power.
On the Borough Council Ballot in Fair Haven
With two Fair Haven Borough Council seats up for grabs, a lone Democrat is vying to oust one of two Republican incumbents.
Those GOP incumbents are Robert Marchese and Eric Jaeger. The last time the two ran on a ticket together was the year Hurricane Sandy hit — 2012. Marchese is seeking election to a full third three-year term. Jaeger, who began serving in 2012 to fill an unexpired term, is seeking a full second.
Continue reading On the Borough Council Ballot in Fair Haven
The Rumson Mayoral Ballot
Longtime Rumson GOP Mayor John Ekdahl is going for his fourth term as mayor facing familiar Democrat Michael Steinhorn.
So Long to Church Street’s Church in Fair Haven
By Elaine Van Develde (photos and story)
The namesake of Church Street in Fair Haven will soon be gone.
The steeple of the longstanding Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion at the corner of the aptly coined Church Street and River Road is still standing, but most of the house of worship has been demolished.
As part of a Planning Board-approved subdivision plan, the demolition of the six-year-shuttered church on a .54-acre parcel, the last renovation of which was deemed a “do-it-yourself project by a very adventurous (group of) builder(s)” in the late 1960s by Rumson builder Kolarsick attorney Brooks Von Arx, began on Tuesday.
As of 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, only the front quarter of the church remained.
Von Arx had said that razing the church was warranted to make way for the unanimously board-approved three-home subdivision because the structure was found to be in disrepair and lacked the architectural integrity or historic background to warrant preservation.
Along with the church, a two-story dwelling and former nursery school on the site were demolished.
The with no historic or architectural integrity to warrant preservation, will now be razed, as will a former nursery school, sanctuary and two-story rectory dwelling that sit on the site.
A church has sat at the location since the late 1800s, thus the namesake street.
For more information on the issue, click here.
Time for Holy Cross Dedication
Here’s the new Holy Cross Church, here’s the steeple. Pretty soon the doors will be open and there will be people, as a Rumson twist on the classic rhyme goes.
If you drive by the revamped Holy Cross Church in Rumson, you’ll see that it’s ready for parishioners.
However, as Catholic church discipline dictates, there must first be a dedication before a Mass is celebrated in a new or rehabilitated house of worship.
That dedication will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m. A reception will follow in the gym of the school on the campus.
Read more about the church’s revamp and see old photos by clicking here. (For history, click on each of the links.)
For more about the dedication tradition, click here.
— Elaine Van Develde/photos and story
Hometown Swearing-in: Fair Haven Police Patrolman Brooks Robinson
By Elaine Van Develde
“Because he’s one of our own, it’s even more special.”
That’s what Fair Haven Police Chief Darryl Breckenridge told a packed audience at Borough Hall Monday night about Fair Haven native Brooks Robinson just before he was sworn in as a patrolman in the borough’s Police Department.
A 2006 Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School graduate, Robinson was brought into the department in 2012 as a Special Law Enforcement Officer Class I and more recently was promoted to a Class II.
He studied at Brookdale Community College and received his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University.
But, for the chief, the honor in promoting Robinson was more a Fair Haven family affair.
Welcoming the Fair Haven Robinson family and the family, and extended family of his wife, Alyssa Pecyno Robinson, also a 2006 RFH graduate, he talked a little bit about why.
“To me, it’s a great honor to be able bring someone aboard on a full-time basis here in Fair Haven who actually went through the school system here, went to the high school and is a part of the town,” he said. “Brooks is going to be a tremendous asset to the department.”
Bringing out the bible, that he noted has been in the Fair Haven family for many years and was donated to the borough by Hap Williams for swearing-ins, Mayor Lucarelli administered the oath to Robinson, Alyssa holding the bible.
” … And that I will faithfully, impartially and justly perform the duties of patrolman according to the best of my ability, so help me God … Congratulations.”
Applause.
Congratulations, Patrolman Brooks Robinson!
Sea Bright: Rip Tide Victim Pulled From Water, Had Pulse
The sirens and bustle of emergency response teams that people saw and heard in Sea Bright this afternoon were the bi-product of a water rescue, the victim of which was reported to have still had a pulse when transported to the Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch.
Early in the afternoon, just after noon, Sea Bright Ocean Rescue and emergency response teams from stations 43 and 33 were “dispatched to the dispatched to the south beach section of town for a reported water rescue,” a post on Sea Bright Fire Rescue Facebook page said.
“Chiefs Olenhaus and Murphy arrived on scene within a minute of dispatch and transmitted a Code X for a confirmed submerged swimmer.”
The teen boy had been swimming with another (who was pulled out of the water unscathed) in an unguarded area of the beach marked with red flags signaling dangerous rip tides, according to onlookers at nearby Driftwood Beach Club.
The rescue crews searched the water and quickly located the victim, who was brought to shore and given CPR, the Facebook post said.
“At the time of transfer of care to the hospital the victim had a pulse,” the post said.
He was listed in critical condition at Monmouth Medical Center as of 3 p.m..
A Heap of Fair Haven History
By noon on Monday, all that was left of the historic Williams-Robard estate in Fair Haven was an old television, a couple of mattresses, a laundry basket, and a chunk of foundation on a heap of scrap.
The 160-year-old waterfront DeNormandie Avenue home that freed slave Charles Williams built — and made home to his immediate family and Robards family descendants — was demolished to make way for a passive park was on the banks of the Navesink River in Fair Haven.
The acquisition of the property has been in the works, via several funding avenues, for the better part of a decade.
The borough finally acquired the 6.9-acre property in the fall to preserve a rare swath of waterfront open space for future generations to enjoy, rather than letting it be sold to a private developer and closed off from public access.
The house, officials have said, was in too much disrepair to preserve. Also, as part of the deal for procurement of funding for the $1.2 million acquisition, borough officials had to agree to demolish the home.
The most recent owners, the Robards descendants, had lived in the house since 1855.
“Winifred Robards (who lived there since 1855, when she was 3) was known to invite kids onto the property to play and enjoy it all the time,” Lucarelli said.
It was her wish to pay that forward, Lucarelli had said. A plaque commemorating the Williams-Robards families will be erected on the site with a recounting of its history, Lucarelli said at the announcement of the acquisition in the fall.
Click here for the story of the acquisition.
— Photos and story by Elaine Van Develde
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