With the provisional ballots counted, Len Morano was officially re-elected to the Barnegat Twp. Committee. H. Kenneth Matthews came up only 45 votes short while every other Republican dominated in the local region, on the back of the strong turn-out of the Presidential race. One important factor that won't be reported in the local press is the fact that Matthews, along with winning Candidate Marty Lisella, refused to answer DowntownBarnegat.com's Candidates' Forum '08 questions. The failure of Matthews responsiveness could be what cost him the election.

With recent elections in Barnegat being decided by only a handful of votes, every vote is important. If Matthews would have taken the opportunity to explain his positions to our readers, he could have easily picked up the neccessary votes to put him over the top. Instead, he chose to ignore questions from us -- and our readers. Ironically, on all of his political mailers he asked voters to submit questions to him...and we did. He just didn't answer them.

DowntownBarnegat.com had its highest number of readers ever this election season. The thousands of visitors to this site over this time could have been informed as to what Matthews would do for Barnegat. Instead, we received the same unresponsiveness that has been the norm for the Barnegat Republican leadership.

Marty Lisella was seen as an outsider to local Republican politics and was not hurt as much as Matthews was by not responding to our Forum. Matthews has been part of the Republican machine that has run Barnegat for the past several years. Congratulations to our new Committeeman Lisella, and re-elected Committeeman Morano. DowntownBarnegat.com wishes them the best as they will hopefully work together for the good of every Barnegat citizen.

Although major change did not come to Barnegat this year, the many readers of this website can make a difference. Next year, when voter turn-out will be about half of what it was for this Presidential election, YOU the readers of DowntownBarnegat.com will still be here and YOU WILL BE HEARD. Together we can make a positive difference for our town.

We would like to thank Len Morano and Gene Chiarelli for participating in our Forum. Also we would like to thank the readers who inspired the questions that were asked. Finally we would like to thank the record number of readers who came to our little community website over the past few months. Please...tell your friends, and keep coming back...and support all the good things you read about on these pages. It is YOU who make Barnegat a great community.