Moore Out As 8 -- Including 2 School Board Members -- File For 4 Brick Council Seats

Brick Township residents, get ready for an onslaught of campaign literature, as eight candidates have filed petitions to run for Township Council in the upcoming election.

Four Democrats and four Republicans filed for the four, four-year terms that will be up for grabs in November.

Incumbents Susan Lydecker, James T. Fozman and Andrea Zapcic are seeking re-election; Zapcic, who was appointed to serve for 2014, won a special election last November to complete the council term of Mayor John Ducey. Joining them on the Democratic ticket is Arthur Halloran.

Bob Moore, whose term on the council is expiring, did not file for re-election.

Opposing them will be Republicans Frank Pannucci Jr., Dan Toth, Michael R. Conti and Charles D. Bacon. Pannucci, who was just hired as the acting borough administrator in Point Pleasant, and Conti are both members of the Board of Education. Toth served as a councilman for eight years and lost in the 2013 mayoral primary to Joe Sangiovanni, who was then beaten by Ducey in the November election.

The council has been all Democrats since Paul Mummolo, Heather deJong and Marianna Pontoriero won election in November 2013.

But as has been the case for decades in Brick, partisanship has lurked at the edges continuously.

Fozman drew criticism repeatedly last year from former councilman Domenick Brando over the appointment of Fozman’s wife, Vera, to the township’s housing authority. And the Republicans have criticized Ducey and members of the council continuously over the issue of taking health benefits via their council positions.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have pointed to the Republican-controlled administration of former mayor Stephen Acropolis on a number of issues, most pointedly the township’s financial burden of the Foodtown site and the lack of action to get it developed. Ducey also has pointed to the Acropolis administration on issues with the town’s contract regarding the solar field at French’s landfill, which has been repeatedly criticized by residents over what are seen as loopholes that benefit the contractor to the detriment of the township.