Lakewood NJ election results: Incumbents win board, township races
LAKEWOOD – All three Lakewood Board of Education incumbents retained their seats in the Tuesday election, while Democratic Mayor Ray Coles won another term on the Township Committee, according to results.
In addition, Republican challenger Deborah Fuentes took the second township committee seat currently held by Republican committee member Michael D’Elia, who chose not to run again.
Coles, who first joined the governing body in 2001, has been re-elected continuously since and has served as mayor since 2017. He is likely to be re-appointed to the post again in 2024.
“If they feel I can do it, I‘ll be glad to continue to do it,” Coles said. “It is great to know you have the support of the township.”
Coles received 17,209 votes, while Fuentes garnered 17,495 ballots to win the two township committee seats.
Running unsuccessfully for the township committee were Republican challenger Bruce Stern, who received 4,912 votes; Democratic challenger Jimmy Esposito, who took 2,207; and independent candidate Hershel Herskowitz, with 2,270 ballots cast in his favor.
The school board remained unchanged with incumbents Ada Gonzalez, Moshe Raitzik, and Eliyahu Greenwald taking the most votes, while challengers Eli Eisenbach, Avrohom Shubert and Yoni Morgenstern – who ran under the slogan, “Fixing the Formula” lost.
Raitzik received 15,514 votes, followed by Gonzalez with 14,837 votes, and Greenwald receiving 14,710. Meanwhile, Eisenbach took 3,846, Schubert 3,507, and Morgenstern brought in 3,322.
The fourth challenger, Yehuda Shain, whose slogan was “Accountability and Transparency,” came in last with 2.942 votes.
More state aid for the debt-ridden Lakewood Schools topped the list of issues in this year’s school board race, which drew the first contested election in almost a decade.
For the first time since 2014, each seat up for grabs on the governing body was being challenged as seven candidates sought votes in the non-partisan race, including the four challengers.
The increased interest came as the school district faces its most serious fiscal issues in years, with more than $123 million in state loan debt, a long-running lawsuit over state funding and the ongoing impact of the pandemic and so-called “lost learning.”
“The township has spoken,” Coles said about the incumbent school board victories. “There are a lot of issues with the school system but I don’t think many of us believe that is due to the actions of the people on the board or serving the board.”
The larger school board field was unusual in Lakewood, which had not had a contested race for each seat since 2014, when seven candidates ran for three seats.
Since then, three candidates ran unopposed four times — from 2018 to 2021 — and four candidates ran for three seats in 2015, 2016 and 2022.
Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Incumbent Democratic Mayor Coles wins again in heavily GOP Lakewood
