{"id":11993,"date":"2017-12-27T00:23:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T05:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=11993"},"modified":"2017-12-27T00:29:13","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T05:29:13","slug":"outgoing-atlantic-city-mayor-set-to-become-new-toms-river-administrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/12\/outgoing-atlantic-city-mayor-set-to-become-new-toms-river-administrator\/","title":{"rendered":"Outgoing Atlantic City Mayor Set to Become New Toms River Administrator"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1445\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1445\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1445\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsriver.shorebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/14953571_G-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Don Guardian (Credit: SNJ Today)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1445\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don Guardian (Credit: SNJ Today)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outgoing Atlantic City Mayor Donald A. Guardian was endorsed by the township council Tuesday night to be Toms River\u2019s next business administrator.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guardian, a Republican who served one term, would replace Paul Shives, who announced earlier this year he would be retiring Jan. 12. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Township spokesperson Stacy Proebstle said there are still some steps before Guardian is officially selected, such as the mayor\u2019s signature, as Toms River Mayor Tom Kelaher has been out of the office with bronchitis, and a contract for Guardian is not yet in place. Township Clerk Allison Carlisle said it is contingent on Shives\u2019 resignation in addition to an approval of a contract for Guardian by the council. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The resolution approved by the council Dec. 26 states Guardian will earn an annual salary of $175,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guardian, who unsuccessfully sought re-election for the Atlantic City mayoral spot this past November, was the city\u2019s first openly gay mayor and was the first Republican mayor since 1990.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prior to 2013 when he became the city\u2019s mayor, Guardian had served as an executive with the Boy Scouts Of America and for two decades headed the special improvement district for Atlantic City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Toms River council, at its Dec. 26 meeting, unanimously approved a resolution \u201cconsenting to the appointment of Donald A. Guardian as business administrator,\u201d but council members offered no comments publicly on the resolution which was approved as part of the larger consent agenda. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Councilman Brian Kubiel and outgoing Councilman Jeff Carr were not in attendance at the Dec.26 meeting, citing holiday commitments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shives will still serve as business administrator past the January reorganization meeting, where three new faces \u2014 the first Democrats in more than a decade \u2014 will join the council.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daniel Rodrick, one of the three newcomers, expressed disappointment in the resolution passed Tuesday, saying the incoming council should have had a voice in the decision. He said he was also disappointed the measure was taken at the last meeting of the year, the day after Christmas, without the mayor and two councilmen in attendance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c(Guardian) leaves Atlantic City with a downgraded double-\u2018c\u2019 bond rating. Is that what Toms River needs?\u201d Rodrick told Shorebeat at the council meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shives\u2019 annual salary, at $223,000, became one of the Democratic ticket\u2019s talking points during the 2017 council campaign, with the challengers saying it was a high-priced salary and benefits package.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shives, who has served as Toms River\u2019s business administrator since 2009 and oversaw township operations through Superstorm Sandy, previously was Stafford\u2019s business administrator.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Toms River Republican Club President Robert Dibiase said that while the club did not take part in the selection process, he was impressed with the choice of Guardian. Guardian is credited with trying to stabilize the resort town\u2019s finances amid an economy that closed several casinos.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHe has done so much, in so many capacities, if you look over his years of service and all he\u2019s been involved in\u201d Dibiase said, saying he had the opportunity to meet with Guardian over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/12\/outgoing-atlantic-city-mayor-set-to-become-new-toms-river-administrator\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outgoing Atlantic City Mayor Donald A. Guardian was endorsed by the township council Tuesday night to be Toms River\u2019s next business administrator. Guardian, a Republican who served one term, would replace Paul Shives, who announced earlier this year he would be retiring Jan. 12. Township spokesperson Stacy Proebstle said there are still some steps before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":11994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[946,24,3150,3151,3152,100],"class_list":["post-11993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-atlantic-city","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-don-guardian","tag-mayor","tag-paul-shives","tag-toms-river"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/14953571_G.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-37r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}