SEA BRIGHT: KELLY, BIRDSALL CLAIM SEATS
Incumbent Republican Brian Kelly and independent Kevin Birdsall won the two open council seats in Sea Bright Tuesday, according to results posted by the Monmouth County Clerk.
SEA BRIGHT: TOWN HALL ON REFERENDUM
Sea Bright residents are scheduled to gather for a town hall meeting Tuesday night to discuss a referendum on whether to bond for new public facilities to replace those destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012.
IN RECOVERY, MAYOR ISSUES CRITICISM
Mayor Maria Fernandes, below, issued criticism to Council President William Keeler, right, and suggested holding off reappointing borough Attorney Joe Oxley, left. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Sea Bright Mayor Maria Fernandes may have lost a limb, but she hasn’t lost any of her bite.
Fernandes, who’s been recovering from a mild stroke suffered in October, recently had her left leg amputated just below the knee. She’s laid up at Monmouth Medical Center, which prevented her from attending Saturday’s annual borough government reorganization meeting.
But that didn’t stop her from making herself heard. And Fernandes blasted her elected counterparts via letter.
2011 PLEDGE: BEACHFRONT DEVELOPMENT
Brian Kelly was sworn in for another three-year term to the Sea Bright council Saturday. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
When Brian Kelly was running for re-election to the Sea Bright council last year, his major aim was to make progress on big plans to develop Sea Bright’s beachfront.
After Kelly was sworn in to his seat on the council Saturday, he said the council is going to make good on that promise in 2011.
“The biggest thing this year will be our vow to complete the phase one priority, which is a beachfront facility,” the Republican said.
SEA BRIGHT: GOP SURFS TO VICTORY
The future of beachfront development in Sea Bright will stay in the hands of those who started making plans for it.
Incumbent Republicans Brian Kelly and Peggy Bills thwarted a challenge by Democrats Meg Fisher and Marc Leckstein in Tuesday’s election.
Like Kelly, Fisher made beachfront development a top campaign priority. But it was Kelly, who heads the borough’s Smart Growth Committee and has been involved in drafting plans for a waterfront restaurant and pool club, who voters picked to continue to work toward the goal of bringing more revenue into the borough via the municipal beach.
CANDIDATE Q&As: SEA BRIGHT
Earlier this month, redbankgreen emailed questionnaires to local candidates for public office in towns with contested elections on November 2. We began running the replies last Friday, starting with those from Middletown, where four candidates are vying for two seats on the five-member Township Committee.
We continue today with Sea Bright, where four candidates are seeking two spots on the borough council. The replies are arranged below in alphabetical order. No reply was received from Peggy Bills, an incumbent Republican.
Here’s the Sea Bright ballot: sea-bright-ballot-2010
Tomorrow, the series continues with Rumson, and we’ll conclude Wednesday with Red Bank.
KELLY: PUT EMPHASIS ON BEACH REVENUE
NAME: Brian Kelly (Republican, incumbent)
AGE: 42
OCCUPATION: CEO of a Solar Design and Installation Company
LENGTH OF RESIDENCE IN TOWN: 10 years
General Questions:
1. What do you see as the top three issues in town?
The top three issues are 1) continuing to reduce the operating costs for the borough of Sea Bright (fiscal responsibility) 2) completing Phase 1 construction in 2011 for the beachfront facilities. Once we settled a lawsuit with the State DEP earlier this year regarding beachfront access, it allowed us to move forward with the beachfront planning and construction as well as help make additional funds available for beach access projects 3) We successfully completed shared services for our courts (also removed old court trailer) with Oceanport as well as other cost savings shared services for maintenance and fuel contracts, etc… continue to look at shared services with other boroughs and continue with ones that will only save the borough money and either keep or improve the services without losing the benefits of our borough staff.
COMING SOON: SEA BRIGHT POOL CLUB PLANS
Plans are moving forward to develop the site that once was the Peninsula House. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
There’s a reason Read Murphy went from former councilman back to councilman in 2008: pool club. Now, with a year left on his term, the Republican is putting his personal guarantee on a campaign promise that, until this point, has been little more than talk.
For nearly a decade, local government has struggled to find ways to generate revenue along the beachfront ideas that included buying Donovan’s Reef to developing a beach club and building a boardwalk. But always on the table for discussion, and often, for planning, was developing a public pool and building a cell phone tower. Now Murphy is making a bold claim for Sea Bright’s future.
The cell tower, public pool and, possibly, a restaurant, “will be operating in 2012,” he said.
“This is going,” Murphy said.