{"id":3112,"date":"2019-06-04T21:58:40","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T01:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=3112"},"modified":"2019-06-04T22:02:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T02:02:57","slug":"hill-defeats-coronato-rodrick-in-contentious-toms-river-gop-mayoral-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2019\/06\/hill-defeats-coronato-rodrick-in-contentious-toms-river-gop-mayoral-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Hill Defeats Coronato, Rodrick in Contentious Toms River GOP Mayoral Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3127\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3127\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3127\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill.jpg\" alt=\"Toms River Councilman Maurice &quot;Mo&quot; Hill (Campaign Photo)\" width=\"768\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill-336x420.jpg 336w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill-640x800.jpg 640w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill-681x851.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3127\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toms River Councilman Maurice &#8220;Mo&#8221; Hill (Campaign Photo)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Veteran Toms River Councilman Maurice &#8220;Mo&#8221; Hill defeated two GOP rivals \u2013 including former Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato who received support from the party organization \u2013 to become the instantaneous frontrunner to replace Thomas Kelaher as the next mayor of Toms River.<\/p>\n<p>Hill soundly defeated Coronato in the first true electoral contest after the fall of longtime GOP party chair George R. Gilmore. He also defeated insurgent candidate Councilman Daniel Rodrick, who joined the party last year after initially being elected as a Democrat. Hill&#8217;s ticket of three candidates also won their party&#8217;s support for township council seats in November.<\/p>\n<p>The unofficial results from the County Clerk:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mayor<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Joe Coronato &#8211; 2,546 Votes (34.20 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Maurice &#8220;Mo&#8221; Hill &#8211; 3,057 Votes (41.07 percent)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Daniel Rodrick &#8211; 1,836 Votes (24.66)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Council, at-large (3 seats)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Heather Barone &#8211; 945 Votes (4.50 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Justin Lamb &#8211; 1,647 Votes (7.84 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Christian Momm &#8211; 2,425 Votes (11.54 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">John Meehan &#8211; 2,349 Votes (11.18 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Ken Londregan &#8211; 1,582 Votes (7.53 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">George Lobman &#8211; 1,604 Votes (7.64 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Matthew Lotano &#8211; 2,661 Votes (12.67 percent)<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Joshua Kopp &#8211; 2,720 Votes (12.95 percent)<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Kevin Geoghegan &#8211; 2,638 Votes (12.56)<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Ginny Rhine &#8211; 2,422 Votes (11.53 percent)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The republican primary for mayor saw former Ocean County Prosecutor Joe Coronato as the republican club endorsed candidate, only narrowly earning more votes in the club vote back in March compared to longtime Councilman Maurice \u201cMo\u201d Hill.<\/p>\n<p>Hill, a retired rear admiral and dentist, has served for more than a decade as in the ward and at-large council seats, and is currently council president.<\/p>\n<p>A third candidate, Dan Rodrick, is in his first term as a councilman having won his seat last November as a Democrat.<\/p>\n<p>The mayoral race has seen accusations fly between the candidates played out on social media, in their campaign literature and even on the council dais.<\/p>\n<p>Adding to the mix are the three at-large council seats, for a contested republican primary among a field of ten candidates. Christian Momm, school board member Ginny Rhine, and John Meehan are running on Coronato\u2019s slate under the club endorsement.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Lotano, Joshua Kopp and former councilman Kevin Geoghegan ran on Hill\u2019s slate as Toms River We the People.<\/p>\n<p>Ken Londregan, George Lobman and Justin Lamb ran on Rodrick\u2019s slate as Conservative Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Heather Barone, president of EPA Financial and of CASA nonprofit, ran independent of a slate for the council seat.<\/p>\n<p>The campaigns each centered on over development in North Dover and Pleasant Plains corridors of Toms River, how to slow the tide of housing developments near the Lakewood border. Other issues discussed and barbs tossed included municipal spending,and what was possible with the old Ciba Giegy site.<\/p>\n<p>Finger pointing played heavily among the Republican candidates, with campaign literature questioning Hill&#8217;s voting record as a councilman, Coronato&#8217;s past as prosecutor and a land developer attorney, and Rodrick&#8217;s switch from the Democratic party earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>The republican candidates will face the Democrat candidates of Jonathan Petro for mayor, and Drew Boyle, Karin Sage and Michele Williams for council.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2019\/06\/hill-defeats-coronato-rodrick-in-contentious-toms-river-gop-mayoral-primary\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran Toms River Councilman Maurice &#8220;Mo&#8221; Hill defeated two GOP rivals \u2013 including former Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato who received support from the party organization \u2013 to become the instantaneous frontrunner to replace Thomas Kelaher as the next mayor of Toms River. Hill soundly defeated Coronato in the first true electoral contest after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[820,828,11],"class_list":["post-3112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","tag-election-2019","tag-maurice-mo-hill","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mo_hill_bg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}