Councilman J.B. Feeley exchanged a hug with Councilwoman Mary Tighe on Election Night after the vote totals showed Feeley losing his bid for re-election.
Mail-in ballots were not enough to save incumbent J.B. Feeley from losing his seat on City Council in Sea Isle City’s first contested election since 2011.
Final vote totals, including mail-in ballots, posted Monday on the Cape May County Board of Elections website showed that incumbent Councilwoman Mary Tighe and newcomers Mike Jargowsky and Ian Ciseck are the winners.
Feeley was the low vote-getter on Election Night among five candidates vying for three open spots on Council.
Mathematically, Feeley still had a slight chance of winning if enough mail-in ballots received after the election were cast in his favor.
But Feeley remained last among all five candidates after the mail-in ballots were added to the vote totals by the Cape May County Board of Elections.
Monday was the deadline to receive mail-in ballots date-stamped by May 13, the date of the election, Sea Isle City Clerk Shannon Romano said.
Vote totals are still considered unofficial until they are certified by Romano. She said she will certify them by May 23.
According to the unofficial results, Jargowsky led all candidates with 624 votes, followed by Tighe with 497 and Ciseck with 450. Steve Cossaboon finished with 423 votes, while Feeley had 417.
On Election Night, before all of the mail-in ballots were included, Jargowsky had 613 votes, Tighe 488, Ciseck 438, Cossaboon 413 and Feeley 408.
Normally, Sea Isle’s elections are devoid of any drama because the incumbents routinely run without opposition. This election represented the first one since 2011 to have a contested race.
City Council has five members, but William Kehner and Frank Edwardi Jr. were not up for re-election this year.
Tighe is one of the five original Council members who were elected when Sea Isle switched from a Commission-style form of government to the Mayor-Council format in 2007. The win gives her fifth consecutive term on Council. She also formerly served a two-year term under the previous form of government.
Feeley has served two terms starting in 2017.
Jargowsky, a retired Sea Isle police captain, ran on the same ticket as Tighe and Feeley. Jargowsky took the spot of Councilman Jack Gibson, who decided not to seek re-election this year.
With one incumbent losing and two political novices taking wins, the results strongly suggested that voters were ready for new faces on City Council. The Council members will be sworn in for their new four-year terms on July 1.
Ciseck, a Sea Isle real estate agent, is promising to push for even greater change on the governing body as soon as he takes office. He said he intends to serve no more than two terms and believes there should be formal term limits placed on all members of City Council in Sea Isle, as well as the mayor.
Ciseck had Cossaboon as his running mate. Cossaboon is a retired special education teacher and coach at Haddon Township High School in Camden County who moved to Sea Isle full time three years ago.
