MANCHESTER – The three-way race for mayor featured Republican Club backed candidate Mayor Joseph Hankins, independent Republican Mariah Prokop making her first foray into the political arena and Democrat Ken Seda making his second attempt at capturing the position. Hankins took in 9,507 votes, securing his spot for four more years.
Seda received 4,612 votes and Prokop received 3,388.
The mayor and council races are nonpartisan in the township’s form of government which does not include a primary for municipal level seats.
This year’s municipal election also featured two full term council seats that council members Sandy Drake and Judy Noonan ran for. Drake was originally appointed last year and won an unexpired term afterwards while Noonan previously served on the council in Berkeley Township prior to moving to Manchester several years ago. She replaced Roxy Conniff who resigned last spring having made the decision to move from the township and relocate to southern Ocean County. Both Republicans faced no opposition in the election. Drake received 12,005 votes while Noonan received 11,494 votes.
Some feared a three-way race would cause a repeat of a runoff as it did four years ago when then Republicans Mayor Robert Hudak, challenger Robert Arace and Seda squared off at the polls. That race led to Hudak and Arace narrowly missing the 50% plus one ratio that pushed the contest forward to two months later at the expense of the municipality. Seda didn’t reach enough votes to participate in the rematch and Arace won.
Arace would then be elected as a member of the Board of Ocean County Commissioners in 2025, two years into his mayoral position. Hankins, who served on the council at the time, was appointed as mayor. Arace was backed by Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore.
Gilmore’s influence within Manchester Township was a campaign topic for Seda and Prokop expressing that the party boss was controlling aspects of the municipality’s operation.
The campaigns of each of the mayoral candidates brought up issues of necessary updates to the township’s infrastructure, concerns of over development and transparency. A side issue was that most of the township’s many senior developments had established regulations prohibiting candidates from holding open forums or allowing for a debate or presentations about the election to allow each candidate to speak to residents of that community.
Each of the candidates expressed to The Manchester Times that it was difficult if not impossible to make their case directly to those voters due to the bylaws that currently exist but they expressed hope that the homeowners associations of these senior communities might reexamine those rules and reconsider them for next year’s election period to allow for candidate forums to be held there.
Prokop told The Manchester Times that the campaign was a learning experience and that she would be keeping alert and vocal to the issues of the community despite the outcome on election day. She noted that she might well be back on the ballot during some future election season.
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