Incumbent loses in Sea Isle City

A slate of council candidates backed by longtime Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard C. Desiderio won two of the three seats in today’s non-partisan municipal election, but one incumbent appears to have lost re-election.

Michael Jargowski, a retired police captain and emergency management coordinator, received the most votes, 613, followed by Councilwoman Mary Tighe with 488 votes.  Ian Cisek leads Steven Cossaboon by 25 votes, 438-413, a seemingly insurmountable margin, in the race for the seat of retiring Councilman Jack Gibson.  Two-term Councilman J.B. Feely is in fifth place with 408 votes.

Gibson, 91, served as a Sea Isle school board member from 1969 to 1973, and won a State Assembly seat in 1991.  Jeff Van Drew, then a Democrat and Cape May County Freeholder, ousted Gibson in 2001; Gibson returned the Assembly in 2003 when Nicholas Asselta (R-Vineland) won an open State Senate seat, and lost re-election in 2005 to a Van Drew-backed candidate, Nelson Albano (D-Vineland).   Gibson won a city council seat twelve years ago.

Tighe has been a councilwoman since 2007.

Desiderio has served as Sea Isle City mayor since 1993 and as Cape May County Commissioner since 2003; he is among a small group of elected officials who were grandfathered when he state banned dual officeholding in 2007.