OCEAN CITY — Four candidates are seeking three at-large seats on City Council in the May 12 election: incumbents Sean Barnes and Tony Polcini and newcomers Jim Kelly and Jocelyn Palaganas.
Barnes, an Ocean City native, would bring his lifelong knowledge of the town and the analytical and communication skills learned in his professional career to Ocean City Council if re-elected to an at-large position.
During a special election in 2024, he handily defeated former councilman Michael DeVlieger for the remaining two years of Karen Bergman’s at-large term. Bergman resigned from council to take a position with the city’s Senior Center.
Now he is seeking his first four-year term.
“My day-to-day job involves financial analysis, evaluation and negotiation. I’m well versed in land use and budget analysis and implementation and different strategies that meet the needs of the stakeholders, including economic, legal, financial and social needs,” he said.
Barnes said the theme of his campaign is threefold — “protecting our environment, growing our economy and preserving what I call our shore way of life, our beach way of life.”
Reached last week, he said his campaigning is going well.
“Everything’s going great. I’m getting really good feedback and am excited for the election,” Barnes said.
A traditionalist, he prefers to do his outreach face to face by “attending events and knocking on doors — networking as much as possible, keeping myself out there in the public,” he said.
He also has embraced using mailers and social media, calling the latter “definitely the way of the world.”
He said he is creating reels and static content for his website, but noted he also has a meet and greet coming up.
“I think social media is becoming increasingly more impactful, probably more than last time, but I still think there’s room for traditional ways,” Barnes said. “I absolutely prefer doing face to face, even with a meeting setting.”
But social media lets him cover a lot more ground.
“It’s hard to cover the whole island,” he said.
Barnes is telling voters he has a common-sense approach to the job and a good track record over the past two years.
He said he is hearing a lot of positives from constituents, who “appreciate the job I’m doing.”
“I am happy with the response I’m getting,” he said, noting he is confident. “I feel really good. I think I am going to have another four years.”
Another incumbent, Polcini announced a few months ago that he was not going to seek re-election, but after others asked him to re-evaluate, he agreed. He first ran successfully with Councilman Pete Madden and former councilwoman Karen Bergman in 2022.
“I felt like at the time — there was a lot of division with Wonderland — I guess four years is enough,” he said.
But then he reconsidered, saying people urged him not to leave something unfinished.
“Don’t run away from times getting tough. Stick with it and do the best I can for the people,” Polcini said.
He noted that City Council and other stakeholders are working to find a fitting replacement for Wonderland Pier on the north end of the boardwalk, where hotelier Eustace Mita has proposed a high-rise hotel.
“We’re in the middle of all this with the boardwalk and I feel like I need to see it through and hopefully, I’ll be re-elected and see it through,” he said.
Polcini spent 28 years working at Manco and Manco Pizza, an iconic business on the boardwalk. He now works in sales at a different company. A graduate of Atlantic Christian School, he and his wife, Jennifer, have two sons — JD, a senior at Ocean City High School, and Michael, who has Down syndrome and is in eighth grade at Ocean City Intermediate School.
He said he has gotten only positive feedback from constituents about getting back in the race.
Polcini said voters have told him they are looking for transparency and good governing.
“They want to see taxes to be done as best as possible, and for the most part, the administration has done well,” he said, noting the city has completed a lot of infrastructure work and dredging and secured funds for beach replenishment.
He said he is friendly with the other candidates and that he gets along with everyone really well.
“I respect each one of them wholeheartedly,” Polcini said. “They are wonderful, good, upstanding people who have a lot of integrity and work hard. Voters just have to pick the best one.”
Palaganas is running with what she considers the perfect slogan for herself — “Bringing people together.”
Now in her third year on the Ocean City Board of Education, she was appointed to City Council’s Boardwalk Subcommittee, which has been studying zoning and is expected to make recommendations by the end of May for the boardwalk as a whole, including the former Wonderland Pier amusement park site.
She is married to Bill Westerman, owner of George’s Candies and related businesses on the boardwalk, and has lived in Ocean City about 18 years. Palaganas is vice president of inside sales at Advanced Hospitality Systems, which is based in Voorhees, but she works out of her home.
She has three children — Gage, Gavyn and Skylar — the youngest of whom is at the University of Delaware studying pre-med.
Palaganas said campaigning along with all of her other responsibilities is keeping her busy.
“I’m used to it,” she said, noting she is creating social media content, attending meet and greets and going to a lot of local events.
“All in all, I’m getting a lot of support,” she said, noting that many people know her through the school but those without children in the district are not as familiar.
She said constituents are pushing her to take a stance on the future of the Wonderland Pier site but she noted the subcommittee is studying the boardwalk, not a single location, and she has no information that was not shared with the public.
Instead, she said, she is focusing on keeping enrollment up in the school district and marketing the town as a year-round destination.
“Looking at tourism as a whole, after the pandemic, Cape May, Wildwood, North Wildwood, Avalon, Sea Isle have done a good amount of improvements. We need something new,” Palaganas said.
She said her career has taught her to be a good listener and one of her strong points is generating consensus from a group of different people.
“I’m good at putting resources together and finding a solution,” Palaganas said. “If I need something done, I find a way to do it.”
If elected, she said, there would be a learning curve and she would listen to everybody already serving to learn how negotiations work, the budget and working as a team.
She has been friends with Polcini, knows Barnes’ brother Kevin Barnes through his role as president of the Board of Education and serves with Kelly on the Boardwalk Subcommittee.
“At the end of the day, I know everybody and we have a respectful relationship,” she said. “I appreciate everybody running a clean, respectable campaign.”
Kelly is a familiar face at City Council meetings, speaking many times on behalf of the advocacy group Ocean City 2050 about the future of the Wonderland Pier amusement park site. He also was appointed to the Boardwalk Subcommittee, which has been studying zoning on the boardwalk to make recommendations to council about the boardwalk as a whole and the Wonderland property.
“I care about the city, I care about the community and I think I’m in a position to serve it well. I think my talents can do good for people,” the LaSalle University graduate said.
He has a 43-year business career with executive experience in finance operations and business strategies for one of the nation’s leading senior living developers and managers.
He grew up in Bucks County, Pa., and he and his wife, Donna, who have been married nearly 40 years, moved the family to Ocean City in 2004.
They have two grown sons, both Ocean City High School graduates who were state champions for the Red Raider surfing team. They also have three grandsons, ages 8, 4 and 2.
This is Kelly’s first time running for public office.
“It’s a lot of work but it’s good work,” Kelly said. “I’m really enjoying meeting a lot of people and having great conversations.”
Like Palaganas, he said the other candidates are “very friendly, all out there doing our best to put on a good campaign and all looking for a chance to serve the city.”
“Three of us are going to work together, so it’s important to establish relationships now that would carry over,” Kelly said.
He prefers the more personal methods of campaigning, as well as advertising in traditional media.
“Facebook is a popular channel and Ocean City voters are engaged pretty strong, but personally, I like to sit down and talk to people,” he said. “I do love going door to door.”
He said that lets him gauge what really matters to people.
“I wish there were more hours in the day to do that,” he said, noting he also attends City Council meetings and a recent town hall held by Mayor Jay Gillian.
Kelly said constituents love Ocean City and want to provide constructive feedback, whether it’s on something they like or are displeased with.
“I think that’s somewhere where City Council could do a little bit better, in making clear that we do want to hear from people,” he said, noting he works in a business in which people want to tell him what needs to be improved.
“The important thing is listening, not getting defensive like you know everything. The best solutions come from listening,” Kelly said.
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff