Red Bank's mayor slate takes full control, routing incumbent council members from office

RED BANK - Mayor Billy Portman and his Red Bank’s Ready slate appear to have won the borough’s municipal election with about 60% of the votes, ousting the incumbents who previously held control of the council.

The preliminary results indicate that incumbent Portman received 1,218 votes to challenger Tim Hogan’s 780 votes. Hogan is the president of Riverview Medical Center, the borough’s largest employer.

The nonpartisan election, the first in the borough's history, arose from the borough Democratic Party's split into two factions, resulting in a referendum calling for a Charter Study Commission to consider a new form of government. The Commission's recommendation for nonpartisan municipal elections passed with nearly 70% of the vote last November.

Portman was first elected mayor last November after defeating Councilman Michael Ballard in the June Democratic primary, in which Ballard was the favored candidate of the local Democratic Party. However, Ballard and his allies kept a 5-1 advantage on the council, with only Councilwoman Kate Triggiano allying herself with Portman.

The divide showed, such as when Portman issued a rare mayoral veto of an ordinance tightening rules on short-term rentals such as Airbnb, only to be overridden by Ballard and his allies. Ballard's faction has also pushed for tighter controls on how many legal marijuana businesses can be set up in town.

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With this new May election, Portman said his team have won their races and have cleared the 50% vote threshold to avoid any runoff elections.

“We’re going to be restoring civility and transparency to the government first of all," he said.

He added that his team's main priorities are hiring a municipal manager, also known as a business administrator, repairing the Department of Public Works, implementing the Marine Park plans and creating a borough that is safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

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Election night results show that each candidate on the Red Bank’s Ready slate received more than 1,000 votes. Councilwoman Triggiano won 1,133 votes; Ben Forest won 1,092 votes; Nancy Facey-Blackwood won 1,083 votes; David Cassidy won 1,046 votes; Kristina Bonatakis won 1,022 votes; and Laura Jannone won 1,017 votes.

On the Red Bank Together team, Sean Murphy won 812 votes; Councilwoman Jacqueline Sturdivant won 756 votes; Erin Fleming won 688 votes; Councilman John Jackson won 667 votes; Linda Hill won 647 votes; and Councilman Ballard won 639 votes.

Independent candidate Sue Viscomi won 665 votes.

Election night results do not include election day dropbox ballots, late mail-in ballots and provisional ballots.

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"My whole slate was talking about having open office hours," Portman said. "We want to be really accessible to the residents. If they have an issue, we want to address it. If we can fix it right away, we will. And if we can’t, we’ll keep them updated. This is a whole team of people who are used to being in service and we’re just doing service at another level.”

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The new governing body will be sworn in on July 1, according to the Charter Study Commission report. The current governing body's term would cease and it would be prohibited from appointing people to any boards, departments or other positions. New members would be appointed to the borough's boards, including the planning and zoning boards.

Portman congratulated the other team and Viscomi. “They ran a really hard race. Congratulate Tim Hogan, he was like me last year. He never ran for office and he worked hard. And as did Sue Viscomi, that’s not an easy place to be, to be running as an independent without the support of the team and she ran a great hard race.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Red Bank NJ election won by mayor's Red Bank's Ready slate