10th District Senate, Assembly Seats Up For Grabs

Next Tuesday will mark the first election day since 1992 when voters will not be able to cast their ballot for Andrew Ciesla to represent the tenth district in the New Jersey State Senate. 

It will also be the first time residents of Manchester and Lakehurst, both of which had been represented in the ninth district, hold a tenth district vote following recent redistricting. 

The longtime GOP legislator from Brick's Herbertsville section announced in February that he would retire at the end of his term. That announcement prompted Ciesla's longtime Assembly running mate, James Holzapfel, also of Brick, to run for the open seat. Holzapfel, a Republican, is being opposed by frequent Democratic candidate Charles Tivenan, another Brick native.

But while the players on the Senate side of the race are well-known to voters district-wide – with Holzapfel having the advantage of both incumbency and a heavily Republican district behind him – the assembly race to fill Holzapfel's seat in the lower house pits two interesting personalities against each other: Gregory P. McGuckin, a well-known figure in county Republican circles who is currently serving on the Toms River Township Council, and Democrat Bette Wary, a resident of Brick for more than three decades who currently resides in the Greenbriar II senior community.

McGuckin made it to the Republican ticket after the county GOP organization's screening committee selected him over Brick Township Councilwoman Ruthanne Scaturro. He's running for the Assembly alongside long-time GOP legislator David Wolfe. As for Wary, she's running with Eli Eytan, an attorney from Toms River.

Patch spoke with both Wary and McGuckin recently about the issues they see as affecting voters in the tenth district, which includes Brick, Toms River, Manchester, Lakehurst, Lavallette, Island Heights, Bay Head, Mantoloking, Point Pleasant Borough and Seaside Heights.

Bette Wary

Wary said she decided to run for office this year because she feels that Republicans have lost touch with local voters after being in office for so many years.

"I feel that the tenth district has been neglected for 20 years, and it's now time for the tenth district to be able to be represented by someone who understands seniors, women, educators, children, firefighters, police and the working class of the tenth district," Wary said.

Wary said one of her election issues is one on which McGuckin has campaigned on as well: school funding.

"I really want to make sure the tenth district receives its fair funding of school aid," Wary said, adding that the current approach of sending large sums of money to a select number of poor "Abbott" districts has not worked.

Providing more school aid is one way to reduce property taxes, Wary said, but she admitted there are no easy anwers. Wary said if elected, she would propose a series of forums where local legislators could work with state officials to hammer out cost-savings agreements without resorting to top-down mandates from the state, such as capping expenditures at 2 percent, as was the agreement between Gov. Chris Christie and the current legislature.

"I don't think the two percent cap that the governor has placed on municipalities is the way to go," said Wary. "Look what happened in Brick. Even with the cap, taxes haven't gone down."

Wary also said she would make restoring the health of Barnegat Bay a priority, as well.

"Our incumbents have done nothing about our bay," Wary said. "The recent laws that came were from Assembly and Senate people from Middlesex County. Where were they [local representatives] for 20 years?"

Greg McGuckin

McGuckin said his platform is threefold, but all his campaign points are based on making sure city issues do not outweigh the district he hopes to represent.

"First and foremost is the issue of property taxes,” McGuckin said. “With respect to property taxes we pay in places like Toms River or Brick, the return that we get from state government isn’t commensurate. Over the years, Democrat legislators have taken the tax money out of the suburbs and funded the cities with it.”

School funding, a second issue McGuckin said he believes is out of whack, is a similar situation to property taxes.

“School funding is the same thing,” McGuckin said. “The state is funding school districts in cities but not in our communities.”
With Abbott decisions, the funding of schools becomes even more troublesome, McGuckin said.

“Really it’s a double whammy — our school taxes go up to cover the lack of investment in state aid given to districts here. And with the state taxes we pay, in return we receive much less back than the student Hudson or Essex. To me that’s just unfair.”

McGuckin said those two issues, as well as affordable housing formulas, are the issues he’d hope to tackle, should he be elected.

The Toms River councilman called affordable housing a “fiasco,” but trying to apply rules in places such as Toms River doesn’t make sense.

“Toms River has never had discriminatory zoning,” McGuckin said. “There are towns that discriminate; that’s not the case in Ocean County. That’s why our parents have moved here.”

He said 40 percent of Toms River is classified as residents of low to moderate income.

“The council on affordable housing attempts this one size fits all approach,” McGuckin said. “That Brick and Toms River have some of the largest affordable housing quotas is ludicrous.”

He said Trenton legislators suffer from short-sightedness and voters should elect more candidates who can work with Gov. Chris Christie toward these reforms.

“Could you imagine if (former Gov.) Corzine had won last election, where would we be right now? Our governor, he’s negotiating for taxpayers,” McGuckin said.

“We need to send people such as myself to Trenton who are going to work with the governor to make our state better … The last thing we need is to send more Democrats to Trenton.”

McGuckin said it’s been a clean campaign so far.

“I feel like we’ve debated the issues,” he said. “I’d hope the voters hear my ideas and also see my experience, having been on the town council for eight years.”

McGuckin has served as Toms River Council president for those years up until early spring, when he announced he’d step down from the council spot to devote his energy to the campaign.