In a Bergen County municipality where the faction in power hasn’t lost a race in 20 years, five candidates running as a ticket are unopposed in Lodi’s May non-partisan municipal election.
Mayor Scott Luna is leading a slate that includes incumbents Vincent Martin, Emil Carafa, Jr., Joseph P. Leto IV.
Councilman Albert DiChiara is not seeking re-election and his apparent replacement is Bruce Masopust, a former mayor.
Leto and Luna, the Bergen County director of general services, were elected in 2019 after incumbents Laura Cima and Patricia Licata did not seek re-election.
Luna is Lodi’s fourth mayor since 2015, when Marc Schrieks resigned to take a job with newly-elected Bergen County Executive James Tedesco. Schrieks’ replacement, Bruce Masopust, resigned later that year to become the borough manager; he was replaced by Carafa. Luna became mayor after emerging as the top vote-getter in 2019.
Leto won by a narrow margin of roughly 50 votes against Sam Garofolo, who led the opposition slate.
The last time Lodi voters ousted incumbents was in 2007, when Mayor Gary Paparozzi lost re-election after being dropped from the slate of incumbents headed by Schrieks, then called Vision Integrity Progress (VIP). Paparozzi and Schrieks had been elected in 1999 on a ticket that ousted Mayor Philip Toronto and four incumbents.
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