By Donald Wittkowski
Hardly a nail-biter, Sea Isle City held a municipal election Tuesday that proved every bit as quiet as the beach town’s sleepy off-season.
Incumbents Mary Tighe and Jack Gibson and newcomer J.B. Feeley ran unopposed for three City Council seats, guaranteeing them victory as soon as they walked into the voting booth.
“Congratulations, I assume,” Gibson said to Feeley in a bit of humor as the vote totals came in after the polls closed at 8 p.m.
“It looks good,” Feeley replied, laughing.
According to the City Clerk’s Office, Feeley had 330 votes, Tighe 327 and Gibson 323. In unofficial results, a total of 21 write-in votes were cast for a number of people who did not run. Among them, former Mayor Mike McHale got one vote and local developer and businessman Christopher Glancey received two.
Council members serve four-year terms and are chosen at-large in the nonpartisan election. Tighe, Gibson and Feeley will be officially sworn in during Council’s reorganization meeting on July 1.
Tuesday’s election was the second time in the past two years that the Council candidates ran unopposed. In this race, Feeley took the place of Councilman John Divney, 76, who decided not to seek re-election after serving for 10 years.
Although the election was a low-key affair, the candidates stressed that they took nothing for granted. They used mailers, robocalls and held get-out-the-vote rallies to drum up interest in the race.
“Even though there was no opposition, we ran everything like a regular election,” Gibson said.
Gibson called the election “a vote of confidence” in the candidates and City Council. Tighe characterized it as a “mandate” that illustrated voter satisfaction with the direction the city has been heading under the current leadership.
“If things weren’t going as well as everyone liked, believe me, people would be out there and there would be opposition,” Tighe said.
With Divney deciding not to seek re-election, Feeley joined with Tighe and Gibson to form a unified ticket, even though Feeley is a Democrat and Tighe and Gibson are Republicans.
All three candidates said that party affiliation was never a consideration in forming the ticket. Feeley, the leader of the local Democrat Party for 40 years, will become the first Democrat to join Council since Sea Isle began the Mayor-Council form of government in 2007.
“I think we have a good ticket on Council,” Feeley said.
Tighe, 48, 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. She is a nurse with the Cape May County Health Department.
Gibson, 83, who served in the state Assembly for 12 years but lost his seat when seeking re-election 2005, won his first term on Sea Isle Council in 2013. He is semi-retired, but works part-time as an engineer for Dennis Township.
Although Feeley is a novice in elected politics, he has held some appointed positions in the government world. Most notably, he formerly served for 17 years as a commissioner and chairman with the Cape May County Board of Elections.
Feeley, 68, retired three years ago from his position as senior project development officer at the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a state agency that uses Atlantic City casino revenue for housing and economic development projects.
Tighe, Gibson and Feeley all agree that coastal flooding is the most important issue facing Sea Isle. The city is in the midst of a flood-control study to find ways to protect the barrier island from coastal storms, including the construction of road, drainage and pumping projects.
“It’s all going to be our focus,” Tighe said of the flood-mitigation projects proposed in the city’s capital plan.
Gibson said he plans to use his expertise in civil engineering to help the city alleviate the flooding problem. Over the long term, he envisions an integrated system of dikes, higher bulkheads and pumping stations to cope with flooding.
Sea Isle is also gearing up for the all-important summer tourism season. Council will be looking to make sure the beaches are in tip-top shape and that the city has a full slate of family-friendly entertainment lined up, Tighe and Feeley said.
Another pressing issue for Council is the fate of the now-closed Sea Isle City Public School. City officials are debating whether to convert the school into a community recreation center.
The school closed in 2012 due to Sea Isle’s declining student enrollment. Tighe, Gibson and Feeley all support the idea of using the school site for recreation, Tighe said. However, the city still must decide whether to retrofit the school or to demolish it and use the land to build a new recreation center, she noted.
