Tom Critelli Keeps Seat In Holmdel Township Committee Race

HOLMDEL, NJ — Republican Tom Critelli kept his seat on the Holmdel Township Committee, fending off challenges from Democrat Barbara Singer and Independent Lea Shave.

By 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, one hundred percent of the Holmdel votes had been counted. Critelli won with 49.83 percent of the vote, 3,002. Coming up second was Singer, with 41.22% or 2,483 votes, and third was Shave, with 8.93 percent or 538 votes.

6,024 people in Holmdel voted today, with one person writing in a candidate.

Critelli already sits on the Committee and was in fact nominated to be Holmdel's mayor, a mostly de facto position.

Singer, an attorney, ran with the support of the Holmdel Democrat party and has run unsuccessfully for Township Committee before. Shave paints herself as an independent activist and community watchdog free of any affiliations to either political party.

Critelli mostly ran on his support for Holmdel's youth sports community: Just last week he announced a controversial surprise deal that handed over 115 acres at Cross Farms to the county in exchange for 14 acres of playing fields that will be built across the street from Holmdel High.

However, some Holmdel residents criticized that deal as being done behind closed doors and without community input.

"Sparse details were provided to determine if this is a good deal or not," said Singer in a statement. "The first announcement was rushed out to the residents. A few sentences, little information, no costs provided on the proposed developments."

The group Save Holmdel Village endorsed Lea Shave. They wrote of Critelli: "While a well-known public figure in town, Mayor Critelli has been uninspiring – accomplishing little during his tenure beyond continuing a supposed zero municipal tax increase/long-overdue record road improvement program; JCP&L meeting; and an eleventh-hour – not publically-vetted – land swap election deal with Monmouth County. We view the land-swap as a last-ditch political ploy to garner votes from the private sports community (while alienating many others for how he did this)."

Related: Holmdel Adds 13.8 Acres Of Sports Fields In Land Swap With County