Brick Township Council Election 2019: Andrea Zapcic

BRICK, NJ — As Election Day 2019 nears, Patch is sharing profiles of the candidates for local office.

Andrea Zapcic is one of eight candidates seeking election to the Brick Township Council. Four seats, each with a four-year term, are on the Nov. 5 ballot. She is one of four Democrats seeking a seat; her running mates are Art Halloran, Lisa Crate and Vincent Minichino. Their Republican opponents are Jim Fozman, Max Flores, Victoria Chadwick and Neil Napolitano.

Patch asked each candidate the same questions. Here are her answers.

Name: Andrea Zapcic

Age: 62

Employment: RWJBarnabas Health Institute for Prevention and Recovery.

Tell us about your public service (township boards, committees you sit on): Brick Municipal Anti-Drug Coalition (past Chair); Council Recreation Committee (Chair), Public Safety Committee, Ethics Committee; previously served on Public Works, Land Use and Business and Finance.

Any previous elected office (council, school board, etc)? How many years have you served? None prior to Council (currently in my sixth year).

What conflicts would you have (what won't you be able to vote on) if elected? None at this time.

Tell us about the most important thing you do that has nothing to do with politics or your employment: The most important thing that I do outside of my full-time job and my Council duties is to be present for my family. My family means more to me that anything else in the world. I am truly blessed to be married to my best friend for almost 37 years and to have raised two healthy, reasonably well-adjusted children into productive adulthood. They are both people that I would choose to spend time with, even if they weren’t family. It doesn’t get much better than that.

What will you do if you are elected to council? Brick Township has been very good to me. Not only has it been a wonderful place to live and raise a family, as a former employee, Brick gave me the start of what has become the most meaningful work of my career – substance use prevention. If elected to Council, I will repay that debt by continuing to work with BMAC, our Police Department, schools, businesses, community organizations, houses of worship and social services providers to eradicate the opioid epidemic in our town. I also want to see all of our parks renovated which will finish with the upgrades to Bayside Park, Cedar Bridge Manor Park and Mallard Point Park as well as the sale of the old Foodtown site and the building and opening of the SportsDome. The combination of robust prevention programs in our schools and neighborhoods along with safe, healthy places for our young people and families to play, will continue to make Brick better.

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