Toms River School Board Race: 3 Seats Up, Incumbents Step Aside

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education will have new faces come January as current members of the board did not file to seek reelection, according to the Ocean County clerk's office.

Beachwood representative Daniel Leonard has drawn the most attention in the last week and did not file to run for reelection in the wake of the controversy over Facebook posts he made in April about two Muslim-American congresswomen were shared with a Muslim civil rights organization that called for his resignation.

He's not the only one not seeking reelection, however. Neither Janet Bell, who represents Toms River, nor Russell Corby, who represents Pine Beach and currently serves as the vice president of the board, submitted petitions to run again, according to the list released by the Ocean County clerk's office.

Monday afternoon was the filing deadline to be on the ballot for November election for the three-year seats.

In Pine Beach, Kevin Kidney and Anthony J. Trump have filed petitions to represent the borough. Kidney is a teacher in the Brick Township schools. Trump is the director of admissions at Ocean County College and an adjunct professor at Kean University.

In Toms River, the candidates are Lisa Natale-Contessa, Sean F. Monahan, Robert Onofrietti Jr., Jeffrey Dingsor, Kathleen Eagan, Wendell J. Ferandos, and Brian M. Quinn.

Onofrietti served on the board previously and ran for election last year unsuccessfully amid a bitter battle for two at-large seats.

Ferandos ran for the Ward 3 seat on the Toms River Township Council in 2017. He is an auditor for S&H Inventory Services.

Natale-Contessa is a vice president and senior marketing officer at OceanFirst Bank.

Monahan is an investment adviser.

Dingsor is the owner and operator of ACME Video Websites, ACME Video Productions and ACME Innovations.

Eagan retired from teaching in the Toms River schools and had served as president of the Toms River Education Association.

Quinn, who has a Lavallette mailing address, lives in the Chadwick Beach section of Toms River. He is a consulting civil engineer.

In Beachwood, Melissa Morrison and Alex Mizenko are seeking to fill Leonard's seat. Mizenko, running on the "Students Teachers Taxpayers" platform, ran against Leonard and Leslie Brown in 2016 for the Beachwood seat and finished second in that election.

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