JACKSON – Scott Martin, who has served on the Jackson Township Council since 2006, fell short in his re-election bid on Nov. 6 and will conclude his public service to the community at the end of December.
“I am very disappointed,” Martin said in the wake of the election outcome.
Jackson has a nonpartisan form of municipal government and candidates do not run for office under the banner of a political party.
However, council candidates Andrew Kern and Alex Sauickie III were on the same ticket as Michael Reina, the incumbent mayor. Council candidates Brandon Rose and Paul Sarti ran with mayoral candidate Tracie Yostpille. Martin and Denise Garner ran for council seats in separate campaigns.
Reina, Kern and Sauickie were the winners on Election Day. The results are unofficial until they are certified by Ocean County. Reina, Kern and Sauickie received 12,621, 10,389 and 10,030 votes, respectively.
Yostpille, Rose and Sarti received 6,905, 5,756 and 5,729 votes, respectively.
Martin received 2,393 votes and Garner received 1,558 votes. The totals do not include all mail-in ballots or provisional ballots.
“When your opponents are spending close to six figures on their mailings, it is obviously difficult to overcome when you are running on your own. I reached out to the Reina team to obviously congratulate them and I hope they make the right decisions moving forward and I wish them well,” Martin said.
The councilman described some of the accomplishments of which he is most proud.
“I think getting our budget practices in order when we first took office. We were nearly bankrupt and staring at a 32 percent municipal tax increase. Due to the mismanagement of the previous administration, our debt had exploded, our police department was understaffed, it was complete chaos,” Martin said.
He said 12 years later, Jackson’s spending is “under control.”
“Tax increases are kept to a minimum, our debt has gone down,” Martin said.
He said another significant achievement was authoring an ordinance which made it mandatory for anyone who works with children in the community to undergo a background check, even if the interaction is only part-time or seasonal.
“When we first came into office we had no ordinance in place to mandate background checks for people working with children in Jackson. It was only on full-time personnel, but for part-time and seasonal personnel there was no provision (for a background check).
“We had several people working with children who had not been checked for anything. We mandated background checks for anyone working with children and we required all of the sports organizations to do mandatory background checks for anyone working with children,” Martin said.
Martin said he is proud of JTV, a municipal channel which covers the community.
“Prior to coming into office we did not have a dedicated (cable television/YouTube) channel for Jackson. Mayor (Mark) Seda asked me to negotiate a contract (with a cable television provider) on behalf of the township and I worked with then-Councilwoman Emily Ingram to negotiate the contract so we would have our own dedicated channel,” he said.
Martin said he is proud officials were able to change the way emergency medical services are provided in Jackson. He said officials moved away from a provider that was only allocating two ambulances to the community and to a provider that offers more emergency vehicles.
He said additional police officers have been hired and “now we can be more proactive in dealing with the drug epidemic.”
Martin said he is unsure about his future in politics and said he was disappointed not to have been on Reina’s ticket.
“Running on my own I can hold my head high that I ran on positive issues regarding the campaign. I did not take shots at anybody. I did not attack anybody. I ran on my accomplishments and what I feel Jackson should do in the future, but unfortunately in a town this size you just cannot do (an independent campaign) …
“When you are dealing with a town of 60,000 residents and almost 40,000 registered voters it is very difficult to get your message out. With the two mayoral campaigns (Reina and Yostpille), I cannot even imagine how much money they must have spent, they had to easily spend close to six figures on their mailers,” Martin said.
