By Donald Wittkowski
Two incumbents and a political newcomer who all ran unopposed in the Sea Isle City municipal election in May took the oath of office Saturday during City Council’s annual reorganization meeting.
Mary Tighe and Jack Gibson are returning to Council, while J.B. Feeley joins the governing body for the first time. Although Feeley is a Democrat, he ran on a united ticket with Republicans Tighe and Gibson after incumbent Republican John Divney decided not to seek re-election.
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, is the first Democrat to join Council since Sea Isle began the Mayor-Council form of government in 2007.
The Council members serve four-year terms and are chosen at-large in the nonpartisan municipal election. Council works closely with Mayor Leonard Desiderio and his administration to craft laws and run the local government.
Desiderio, alluding to the political bickering that has engulfed Washington, D.C., and Trenton, said both the federal and state governments should look at Sea Isle’s example of bipartisanship “to lead their way.”
“Sea Isle is in good hands here. It’s a great legislative body,” the mayor said of Council.
Also during the reorganization meeting, Tighe was chosen as Council president, a position she has held two other times during her 10 years on Council. Each year, a different Council member is appointed president as part of a power-sharing arrangement on the five-member panel.
Desiderio praised Tighe, saying she is a “very, very hard-working public official” who seems destined for higher office at the county, state or federal level.
“I see her one day as a freeholder, an Assembly person or a Congress person,” Desiderio said.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Tighe said that Council will continue to focus on new construction projects to ease flooding on the low-lying barrier island. She also said Council will begin to prioritize a series of initiatives that are recommended in the city’s updated master plan, a sweeping blueprint to guide growth, economic development, transportation and other key issues in town.
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 community from coastal storms, including the construction of road, drainage and pumping projects.
“In our capital plan, we already have money for pumping stations,” Tighe said in an interview after the Council meeting.
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 in 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.
A seat on the ticket opened up for Feeley after Divney, 76, chose not to seek re-election. Divney, who had served 10 years on Council, said he believed it was time for him to step aside and allow someone else to run.
City Council and members of the audience paid tribute to Divney during the reorganization meeting, calling him a “consummate public official” who served as a mentor, a steady leader and an architect of the city’s updated master plan.
“John was the grease in the axle moving everything along,” Desiderio said.
