Elections

Brick Officials Select New Mayor, Oath of Office Administered

by
Daniel Nee
February 28, 2023

Lisa Crate is sworn in as mayor of Brick Township for the remainder of 2023, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

The Brick Township council on Tuesday night selected Councilwoman Lisa Crate to lead the township as mayor for the remainder of 2023, replacing John G. Ducey, who stepped down Monday after a decade in office to take an appointment as a Superior Court judge.

Crate will take the helm at town hall for the rest of the year, with a mayoral election set for November. The winner of that election will serve two years – the remainder of what would have been Ducey’s term – before another election is to be held for a full term.

Crate was chosen from three nominees submitted by the county Democratic Committee, which was tasked with putting forth candidates since Ducey was a Democrat. Eileen Della Volle, a member of the township’s zoning board, and Thomas C. Curtis, a member of the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority board, were the other candidates.

Crate, who has worked as a teacher and librarian in the Jackson Township school district, currently serves as president of the local teachers’ union, the Jackson Education Association. She is Brick’s second female mayor, only to have been preceded by Carolyn Patetta, who served in the 1990s, also in an appointed capacity.

Lisa Crate is sworn in as mayor of Brick Township for the remainder of 2023, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Crate was nominated for the mayorship by newly-minted Councilman Derrick Ambrosino, himself an appointee filling an unexpired term, from the dais. The council, split 6-1 between Democrats and a Republican, unanimously voted in favor of the appointment.

Crate said after the meeting that she will run for the unexpired term to be decided in November’s general election.

Comments from Crate, a video of the swearing-in ceremony, and reaction from other officials will be added to this story.