{"id":5792,"date":"2018-10-09T03:41:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T07:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2018-10-09T03:41:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T07:41:05","slug":"seaside-heights-bids-farewell-to-councilman-as-former-official-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2018\/10\/seaside-heights-bids-farewell-to-councilman-as-former-official-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"Seaside Heights Bids Farewell to Councilman as Former Official Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Councilmen<\/a>

Councilmen Rich Tompkins and Guy Mazzanti receiving honors at the Seaside Heights municipal complex. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

A quirk in New Jersey state employment statues forced a popular member of the Seaside Heights borough council to step down last year, but he has now returned \u2013 with the town thanking the long-serving official who held his seat for nine months.<\/p>\n

Richard Tompkins returned to the dais this month to replace Councilman Guy Mazzanti, who was appointed to fill the remainder of Tompkins\u2019 term on the governing body after he retired from his full-time job at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. In order to receive his pension, he was barred from public employment in New Jersey for six months. Though council members receive just a nominal stipend for their service, the position is still counted as a job, thus forcing Tompkins\u2019 resignation.<\/p>\n

Mazzanti had previously served on the council as well as the planning board. He, himself, resigned earlier this month and was replaced by Tompkins, whose seat he held.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to thank all of you for assisting me for nine months,\u201d said Mazzanti, who received a plaque from Mayor Anthony Vaz, who thanked him for coming out of civic retirement to fill in on the council. \u201cYou gave me an education. You\u2019re all aware of what\u2019s going on and you people are as smart as a tack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tompkins said he believes in the administration\u2019s plan for the revival of Seaside Heights and was happy to be back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I didn\u2019t think this town was heading in a positive direction, I wouldn\u2019t have come back up here,\u201d he said. \u201cWith this mayor and council, this town has a bright future and I want to be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A quirk in New Jersey state employment statues forced a popular member of the Seaside Heights borough council to step down last year, but he has now returned \u2013 with the town thanking the long-serving official who held his seat for nine months. Richard Tompkins returned to the dais this month to replace Councilman Guy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[18,6,5],"tags":[1277,292,20],"class_list":["post-5792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-guy-mazzanti","tag-richard-tompkins","tag-seaside-heights-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/IMG_6373.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-1vq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}