Sea Isle City Councilmen J.B. Feeley, left, and Jack Gibson hold the honorary plaques they were given to thank them for their public service.
Two long-time members of City Council said goodbye during their final meeting Tuesday, setting the stage for the biggest change in the governing body’s makeup in nearly 20 years.
Jack Gibson, who had served three terms on Council since 2013, decided not to seek re-election this year after hitting his 91st birthday.
J.B. Feeley, who had served two terms since first joining Council in 2017, lost his re-election bid during Sea Isle’s municipal election in May.
Political newcomers Mike Jargowsky, a retired Sea Isle police captain, and Ian Ciseck, a local real estate broker, will join Council on July 1 when the governing body holds its annual reorganization meeting. Jargowsky, Ciseck and incumbent Councilwoman Mary Tighe were the winners in the May election for three open seats.
With two entirely new members coming aboard on July 1, City Council will undergo its most dramatic change since Sea Isle switched from a Commission-style form of government to the Mayor-Council format in 2007.
Year after year, the Council incumbents in Sea Isle usually run without opposition, guaranteeing their re-election. But this year, there were five candidates seeking the three open seats, with Jargowsky and Ciseck emerging from the pack as complete newcomers.
Tighe, Council President William Kehner and Councilman Frank Edwardi Jr. all welcomed Jargowsky and Cisek to Council and said they looked forward to working with them as the new members.
During an emotional meeting, the Council members praised Gibson and Feeley for their leadership, public service and dedication to Sea Isle while saying their goodbyes. Gibson and Feeley were presented with plaques and resolutions honoring their years of service.
“It’s sad to see you go,” Edwardi told Gibson and Feeley in remarks echoed by the other Council members.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio expressed his thanks to Gibson and Feeley while lauding them as “outstanding public servants.”
“Both men have provided this city with professional, steady and astute leadership and guidance during their terms on Council, and the city certainly is a better place because of their service. Jack and J.B., we wish you all the best and we will miss you,” Desiderio said in a statement.
The audience broke into applause after Desiderio’s statement was read during the meeting by City Business Administrator George Savastano. The mayor missed the meeting because he had suffered a leg and ankle injury, but was otherwise all right, Savastano said.
In his farewell remarks, Feeley told Council and the audience that it was an honor for him to serve the city.
“The eight years flew by. I enjoyed every minute of it. I did my very best. I think we did a good job,” Feeley said, while also praising Sea Isle’s municipal employees for their work.
Feeley sent the audience into laughter when he jokingly described his retirement plans now that he is leaving politics.
“I’m looking forward to doing nothing,” he said.
Before he became a councilman, Gibson served in the New Jersey Assembly for five terms from 1992 to 2002. He lost re-election 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.
Gibson said he was an early advocate of Sea Isle’s switch from the old Commission-style form of government to the Mayor-Council format.
“It’s been very successful, in my opinion,” he said. “We’ve had a great working relationship with the administration. Council and the administration got a long so well. I think it’s been helpful for Sea Isle City.”
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 existing, limited two-way interchange expanded into a full, four-way interchange capable of handling modern transportation needs.
In his closing remarks at the meeting Tuesday, Gibson urged Council and Desiderio’s administration to continue to push for a four-way interchange to replace the two-way interchange.
“I do have one charge for the administration and Council. See if you can get that four-way interchange out there. I tried, and it may take a while,” he said.
