Howell Council, School Board Race Results (UPDATE)

HOWELL, NJ — The race for three seats on the Howell Township Council was very close, but two Republicans and a Democrat are ahead. And there is one new leader in the school board race.

With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Republican Thomas Russo had 10,313, Republican Pamela Richmond was second with 9,998 and Democrat John Bonevich had 9,801 votes. But he held just a 155-vote margin over Republican Robert Walsh, who had 9,646. Democrats Kristal Dias had 9,655 and Paul Dorato had 9,613. Walsh is the lone incumbent in the group.

The Monmouth County Clerk's Office has said the vote totals could continue to change, due to the new vote by mail law. "The new law allows mail-in ballots to be received by the Board of Election up to 48 hours after close of the polls, provided the ballot is postmarked on Election Day," a notice on the results website said. Election night mail-in ballots had been 80 percent processed, and provisional ballots needed to be processed, the message said.

The central issues in the Howell council race have been stopping efforts to turn a property on Randolph Road into a larger refuse processing facility, and addressing the town's affordable housing needs while managing development. Walsh has been criticized for what opponents view as a failure to do enough to stop attempts to expand the Randolph Road facility, which is owned by the family of former Monmouth County Clerk M. Claire French. Tensions over the council race blew up over the weekend in a number of heated exchanges on social media that included a lengthy commentary from Suzanne Veitengruber, who served on the school board and the then-Township Committee in the late 1980s and 1990s.

In the Howell Township Board of Education race, unofficial totals in the race for three, three-year terms had Jennifer Okerson leading with 8,052, MaryRose Malley with 6,518, Scott Jeffrey with 5,967 Marc Parisi with 5,961, Angel D. Sanchez, 4,762 and Joseph Tate with 3,186.

Peter Bruno received 11,747 votes to represent Howell on the Freehold Regional High Board of Education, according to unofficial results.

In the uncontested Farmingdale races, Kaaren Corallo received 424 votes and Patricia Linszky received 417 votes in their bids for the two available Borough Council seats. William Shaffer received 414 votes in his bid for one of the two available three-year terms on the Board of Education and Jessica Verney received 400 in her bid for the one-year unexpired term.

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