Newman, Hayes and Pancoast cruise to victory for committee seats
Crowley wins Ocean City First Ward; Vanderslice, Halliday and McAlister win Ocean City school board seats; Teeney, Newman and Holmes win U.T. school board seats
DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
UPPER TOWNSHIP – The Republican ticket of John C. “Jay” Newman, Kimberly R. Hayes and Mark E. Pancoast swept to victory Tuesday, claiming all three seats up for grabs in the Upper Township Committee races.
According to unofficial results posted at capemaycountyvotes.com as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Newman finished with the most votes at 3,160, Hayes had 2,969 and Pancoast had 2,905.
Democrats Lenora Boninfante-Kodytek, Christina (Cricket) Denton and Shawna Mulford had 1,655, 1,648 and 1,775, respectively.
Pancoast, Mulford and John J. Griffin Jr., the Independent Republican with 871 votes, were running for the one-year term on committee.
The others, including Independent Republicans Andrew Shawl (849 votes) and Anthony Inserra (779), were seeking the three-year terms.
Only Hayes was an incumbent, appointed to her seat to fill a vacancy.
“We’re pretty excited (about the big win),” Hayes said. It’s my first time on the ballot even though I’m an incumbent. To have such an overwhelming response from the voters feels amazing. I feel like they’re responding to the work I’ve done over the past few months and I’m pretty happy about it.”
Hayes, like her running mates, said a top priority is the business community.
“I think economic development has been at the forefront of everybody’s conversations through this whole campaign season. Not just us, but also our opponents. It’s pretty obvious that’s going to be a pretty big hurdle to overcome but it’s something we’re ready to tackle,” she said. “Public service is something we’ve all been involved in. We’re looking to continue that trend and support Upper Township and advocate for the people who live here.”
She knew Pancoast before the campaign season and got to know Newman and his family while campaigning.
“We worked really well together during the campaign season,” Hayes said. “I’m pretty excited to hit the ground running and get some stuff done.”
Although they ran as a ticket against Democrats and Independent Republicans, Hayes they may not always be on the same page, but that isn’t a problem.
“Here’s the thing we discovered,” she said. “We can agree and we can agree to disagree but whatever happens we can always work together. We can always come to a consensus and listen to each other.”
“That’s the most important part about leading, being able to listen to different opinions and still move forward and develop the best plan for everyone,” Hayes said.
“We meshed well from day one,” Newman said. “We’re all serious about the township. We all spent countless volunteer hours. We know the township in and out and as we were campaigning we got positive feedback from day one.
“I congratulate our opponents for putting on a good race,” he added. “We’re going to be humble in victory. There are people out there that don’t always agree with us but we’ll keep on moving forward, making the right decisions for the township.”
Newman said he attributed the decisive victory “to the voters of Upper Township realizing that we are best suited to take the township forward in the next couple of years.”
“First of all, we know we have a great township, a great place to live, work and raise a family,” he said. “I grew up here all my life. I can see us moving forward on areas of technology, streamlining some of our processes and trying to bring businesses into the township by reducing some of the regulations.”
He and Pancoast said they can see improving public safety, even though it is more than solid in Upper Township. That is an issue he is well familiar with, being chief of the Marmora fire company. And Pancoast is a lieutenant on the Ocean City Police Department.
“I think we’re the best out there now, but I think we can always get better,” Newman said.
“Overall, we work really well together, the public safety organizations in the town – the four fire companies, the Division of EMS and the Rescue Squad, and we have good ties with the City of Ocean City’s police department and fire department and communications and we plan to strengthen those ties between the organizations and making this the best out there.”
“The number one thing is to be safe,” Newman said. “If you feel safe, you’re good. We work well with the State Police. We’re very, very happy with their performance here in town, they keep us informed.”
Newman believes in what the township already offers to residents and that the trio can improve it.
“We’re safe. We have great schools. We have great recreation and we have low taxes,” Newman said. “I think we can take it and move it forward. I think the voters tonight said they want the Republicans, the team that’s there, to continue on.”
“Upper Township is hands down very safe,” Pancoast said. Most of the problems are based on traffic through town and accidents. He plans to look into traffic patterns to see how they can be improved. He also wants to get Exit 20 – a full exchange on the Garden State Parkway.
He said improving the business environment is important and believes voters heard his slate’s message about more involvement with the community and local businesses.
“We need to definitely look into smart business growth in the Marmora area,” he said, and other areas in the township where business is lacking.
“We need to put our feet down and get running on that,” he said.
Pancoast is looking forward to working with Hayes and Newman.
“We made this bond throughout this past year,” Pancoast said. “Jay and Kim are great running mates. We’re public servants so we get each other very well. We’ve been through a lot in our own jobs, we’ve seen a lot of bad things and we’ve also seen a lot of good things and that’s what we want to work on with the community.”
“We want to focus on the good.”
Ocean City First Ward
Terry Crowley Jr., the man appointed to temporarily fill the position when First Ward Councilman Michael DeVlieger resigned in August, won election to the seat in a three-way race with Donna Moore and Donna Swan DeRocher.
According to unofficial results from the capemaycountyvotes.com website as of late Tuesday night, Crowley earned 682 votes, Moore had 399 and DeRocher had 155.
Ocean City Board of Education
Newcomers Henry (Disston) Vanderlsice and Chris Halliday and incumbent Jacqueline McAlister won the three seats up for grabs in the Ocean City Board of Education election Nov. 2.
There were 11 candidates in all.
According to unofficial results from the capemaycountyvotes.com website as of late Tuesday night, Vanderslice finished with 1,809 votes, Halliday had 1,481 and McAlister had 1,295.
Other candidate vote totals included:
Catherine Panico: 1,032
Liz Nicoletti: 984
Ryan Leonard: 898
Suzanne Morgan: 871
Conor Fleming: 797
Robin Shaffer: 744
Dale F. Braun Jr.: 684
James Bauer: 593.
Upper Township Board of Education
UPPER TOWNSHIP – According to unofficial results from the capemaycountyvotes.com website as of late Tuesday night, Brian Teeney, William Holmes and Frances Newman were the winners of the three seats up for election on the Upper Township Board of Education.
Holmes and Newman are incumbents.
Teeney had 2,639 votes, Holmes had 2,310 and Newman had 2,259.
Candidate Kyle Johnson had 1,895 and Kiernan Black had 1,140.
State Senate, Assembly
Although results weren’t official, it looked as the three Republicans in the state Legislature’s District 1 easily won re-election.
According to unofficial results from the capemaycountyvotes.com website as of late Tuesday night, Mike Testa retained his Senate seat, as did running mates Antwan McClellan and Erik Simonsen with their Assembly seats.