Jack Gibson at Sea Isle's City Hall.
At 90, Jack Gibson is one of the oldest politicians in New Jersey.
As his 91st birthday approaches on March 30, he is closing out a political career that included six terms in the New Jersey Assembly and three terms as a councilman in Sea Isle City.
Although he remains in good health, Gibson alluded to his advanced age while announcing he has decided not to seek re-election to another four-year Council term in Sea Isle this year.
“I thank God for good health at my age, but serving another four-year term may be a bit presumptuous. I am proud to have served these past 12 years with a talented administration and five-member Council,” he said in an interview Thursday.
In place of Gibson, retired Sea Isle Police Capt. Mike Jargowsky, who formerly served as the city’s emergency management coordinator, will join incumbent Council members Mary Tighe and J.B. Feeley on the ticket for the May 13 municipal election.
Gibson wasn’t involved in Jargowsky’s selection as a candidate, but extended his endorsement.
“A new councilman would be welcomed. I am very proud of that selection. I would publicly endorse him right now,” Gibson said.
Gibson first joined Council after winning election in 2013. He won reelection in 2017 and 2021.
Before he became a councilman, he served in the New Jersey Assembly for five terms from 1992 to 2002. He lost reelection in 2002 and then came back from a two-year hiatus in politics to win a new Assembly term in 2004 before losing again in 2005.
“I didn’t feel it was appropriate to run a third time, although I’ve seen others do it. I chose that it was a longshot,” he said of his decision not to try to make another bid for the Assembly after losing in 2005.
Jack Gibson's political career included time in the New Jersey Assembly.As he wraps up his last year in elected office, Gibson is worried about rising sea levels that have made Sea Isle and other communities at the Jersey Shore more vulnerable to flooding. His political career has included his support for projects to help protect the town from chronic flooding, he emphasized.
“I have been an advocate for beach nourishment, back bay protection and stormwater pumping stations, recognizing the long-term seriousness of rising sea levels,” he said.
“I am really concerned about the sea level situation and what we have to do to remain a municipality and viable in years to come,” he added.
Gibson, a retired engineer, has been around Sea Isle long enough to have been involved in the construction of two major transportation projects benefiting the city in the 1950s and 1960s.
He served as Cape May County engineer in 1963 when the John F. Kennedy Bridge entering Sea Isle was built. He is listed on a bridge plaque that includes the names of other dignitaries from that era influential in the project.
He also has a unique history involving the construction of the Garden State Parkway’s Exit 17 interchange leading to Sea Isle. He helped to build Exit 17 in the 1950s when he took a job as a laborer with a company that was a construction contractor on the Parkway.
Gibson was an engineering student at Villanova University when he was working on Exit 17. All these years later, he continues to push to have the limited two-way interchange expanded into a full, four-way interchange capable of handling modern transportation needs.
One of his biggest disappointments during his time on City Council was not being able to win support from local residents for his idea to extend Sea Isle’s oceanfront Promenade from its southern end at 57th Street all the way to Townsends Inlet.
Gibson took personal responsibility, saying he did not properly present his plans for the Promenade’s extension to the residents.
“I still don’t think it’s a harmful thing. It won’t get brought up again. But it was not presented by me properly enough. The people who lived along Pleasure Avenue saw it as an invasion of their privacy and backyard,” he said of the homeowners living next to the Promenade.
Jack Gibson and Mayor Leonard Desiderio look at a plaque on the John F. Kennedy Bridge commemorating its construction in 1963. Gibson served as Cape May County engineer at that time and has his name listed on the plaque, along with other dignitaries from that era.
