Around Toms River: Election, Coronavirus, Schools Updates

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Ballots continue to be verified and counted in Ocean County, and that has left some local election results up in the air, five days after Election Day.

The wait for election results has extended for several days in part because the 2020 general election was conducted primarily by mail in New Jersey amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Ocean County released the tallies of more than 250,000 ballots on Election Night, but election workers have had to count more than 75,000 ballots since then.

According to the unofficial tallies through Sunday, 326,053 ballots had been counted; mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Nov. 3 have until 8 p.m. Tuesday to arrive to be counted, and at that time, provisional ballots will be counted. It's unclear how many provisional ballots were cast in Ocean County. Read more: Ocean County Ballot Count Inches Forward, 17K Still Be Tallied

In Toms River, the race for three, three-year terms on the Toms River Regional Board of Education continues to be led by Lisa Contessa, who has 16,660 votes as of Sunday according to the unofficial results. Just 20 votes separate Ashley Palmieri, who is second with 13,653, and incumbent Michele Williams, who has 13,633. Ken Londregan is fourth with 13,476, followed by Bridget Maillard with 11,452, Rachel Remelgado with 11,389, Robert Onofrietti Jr. with 10,359, Christopher Raimann with 10,242, and Daynne Glover with 9,508.

In the 3rd Congressional District, Republican David Richter closed the gap between him and incumbent Democrat Andy Kim by about 2,000 votes after Ocean County's Saturday vote update. Kim leads 202,051 to 171,240 for Richter as of Sunday, a difference of 30,811 votes. But Burlington County election workers were not counting ballots over the weekend, and as of Friday they had nearly 35,000 ballots countywide to count, beginning Monday. Read more: Richter Trims Kim's Lead In NJ's 3rd Congressional District

Kim has not claimed victory, and Richter has not conceded, inspite of the declaration on Election Night by the Associated Press that Kim had won.

Also, see how Toms River voted on the state's question seeking voter approval of legalizing recreational use of marijuana by adults 21 and older: How Toms River Voted On NJ's Marijuana Question

Coronavirus update

Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise in New Jersey, with the state recording five straight days of 2,000 new cases or more statewide. On Saturday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced 3,207 new cases, and on Sunday, there were 2,043 new cases.

Ocean County remains a focus of attention, which it has been since cases started spiking in the county in September. After several days of fewer than 100 new cases, the county announced 150 new ones on Saturday. On Sunday, there were 72 new cases, giving the county 17,535 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March. Of those, 2,625 people have been hospitalized, and there have been 1,011 people who have died, according to the Ocean County Health Department.

In Toms River, the number of cases have risen from 2,562 on Oct. 28 to 2,692 as of Sunday, according to the health department. The number of deaths in Toms River has not increased during that time; in fact, four deaths that were initially listed as Toms River residents have been reassigned, giving the town 167 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

In the schools

The Toms River Regional School District will start the next phase of its reopening Monday, with its intermediate and high school students starting hybrid learning, with two days in person and three days of remote learning each week.

The return to the classroom comes after students and staff were off for a week due to the election and the New Jersey Education Association convention, which was held virtually because of the pandemic.

Parents and staff were urged to be cautious about travel because of quarantine restrictions imposed on most states in the country, as cases continue to spike.

Intermediate and high school students are the last group in the district returning to the school buildings in the midst of the pandemic, their first time back in the buildings since Murphy ordered all schools in the state to move to remote instruction in March.

In August, as the number of staff members seeking accommodations for medical and child care reasons rose — more than 430 sought accommodations before classes began — and the district struggled to find enough substitutes, the district moved to start the 2020 school year with fully remote instruction.

Preschoolers through first-graders returned to two days a week of in-person instruction on Oct. 5, and second- through fifth-graders returned to in-person instruction Oct. 26.

Later this month, the Office of Naval Research Hack: TR Hackathon is scheduled for Nov. 20-22 and is open to all students in sixth through 12 grades. It's part of the Toms River schools' Tech Ready program. Read more: Toms River Schools Hosting Online 'Hackathon'

Around town

The Toms River Veterans Committee will mark Veterans Day on Wednesday with a ceremony at the Protectors of Freedom monument at Bey Lea Park. The ceremony is being held instead of the annual parade because of concerns about gatherings in the midst of the pandemic. Read more: Veterans Day Ceremony Replacing Parade In Toms River For 2020

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