Doherty gets top CRDA job

Matt Doherty has landed a new job: Deputy Executive Director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.

Doherty is listed as an authority employee on their telephone system. A voice mail message is in Doherty’s own voice.

The Belmar mayor started this week and is not expected to seek re-election to a third term this fall.  His salary was not immediately known, although his predecessor made $175,000-a-year.

Last month, Doherty said that Gov. Phil Murphy had offered him the post of chief administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Services Commission – a cabinet level post — but that he turned it down.

Christopher Howard, a former Associate Counsel to Gov. Chris Christie, became deputy executive director of CRDA during the summer of 2016 and then moved up to the executive director post when John Palmieri left at the end of that year.  Murphy has not said whether he would keep Howard, or if Doherty will move up to the top slot.

Doherty was mayor during Superstorm Sandy and has spent the last five years rebuilding the town and attracting new businesses.

The 44-year-old Democrat had a career in mortgage banking before making his first bid for public office as a State Assembly candidate in 2005. He lost to incumbent Steven Corodemus by just 1,647 votes in a district that had not elected a Democrat in sixteen years.  He won a seat on the Belmar Borough Council, was elected mayor in 2010, and re-elected in 2014.  He lost a bid for Monmouth County Freeholder in 2016.  He is married to Democratic strategist and public affairs executive Maggie Moran.