Politics & Government

Split Ticket: Burnham Breaks Dem Hold on Red Bank Borough Council

Burnham is top vote-getter; incumbent Sharon Lee ousted

 
For the first time in several years, a Republican will take a seat on the longstanding all-Democratic Red Bank Borough Council.

It was a close race, but challenger Cindy Burnham won her first term on the governing body, also garnering the most votes of all four candidates for the two seats up for grabs.

"It's wonderful," Burnham said. "I'd like to thank everyone who supported me. We finally broke that Democratic hold. Maybe now we can get some more people out to those council meetings."

Burnham won with an unofficial tally of 1,292 votes, splitting the ticket with incumbent Kathleen Horgan who garnered only one less vote, or 1,291.

Three-term incumbent Sharon Lee, who ran on the Democratic ticket with Horgan, lost her bid for a fourth term, with 1,267 votes. And Sean DiSomma brought in the least amount of votes with 1,185.

The loss didn't matter to DiSomma as much as the statement he felt was made by the race. "Either way, here's the deal: We gave them a run for their money this year," he said. "No matter what, we were able to break their stranglehold on council. No one can make the case that it (the win) was just on Chris Christie's coattails. Cindy won on her own volition. At the end of the day, we gave them a run for their money and it's not gonna stop."

However, Sharon Lee, over at Democratic headquarters, had a different view. Grateful for the "absolutely amazing nine years" she had already served on the governing body, Lee vowed that she wasn't going anywhere and would remain active in the community, keeping a watchful eye on what she deemed a campaign won with dirty politics based on misinformation.

"There's just outright lying," Lee said to the incumbent crowd. "They used us. They put us on the defensive right away, and we had to spend all of our energies on that. We have to keep working on the positive things and keep moving forward with that.

"When I leave you, I'm never gonna be far away because i'm probably going to be a citizen activist. Tada!"

A teary-eyed Horgan heaped praise on Lee's commitment to the borough and said that though she had always admired Lee, in running with her this term, she had come to think of her as a sister without whom she is sad to be serving on council this term.

Never mind the close vote tallies and chagrin over loss by a narrow margin, Lee added. The issue, she said, is the welfare of the borough, adding that "this is the very first time I've been concerned about who our town will be in the hands of."

The last time a Republican won a seat on council in Red Bank was when Grace Cangemi won to fill the unexpired term of Kay Earnst in 2007. Cangemi served for the remaining year of Earnst's term and ran for a full term in the following election, but did not win.

Stay tuned for a video of the activity at Democratic Headquarters and Sharon Lee's speech.








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