CAPE MAY CITY – Four candidates are vying in the Nov. 5 election for a City Council seat that opened when Michael Yeager decided to step down. Mayor Zach Mullock is running for reelection this year unopposed.

The four council candidates are Steve Bodnar, a member of the Zoning Board and of the city’s Municipal Taxation and Revenue Advisory Committee; Lori Schwartz, a real estate agent in the city; Joell Perez, who grew up as a member of a Coast Guard family and then returned to the city in 2021; and Mark DiSanto, who has unsuccessfully run for council three previous times and who advocates for the creation of a marina district in the city.

Unlike some other county municipalities where the members of the governing body select the mayor from within their ranks, in Cape May the mayor is directly elected by the voters for a four-year term. Mullock, who was then a sitting council member, successfully challenged Mayor Clarance Lear for the mayor’s job in the November 2020 election, where he garnered 61% of the vote.

That election was characterized by a public referendum in Cape May over the best approach to providing public safety departments with badly needed new accommodations. Mullock’s preference came out on top, and he took a mandate for separate fire and police facilities into his first term.

The new firehouse on Franklin Street is partial delivery on that election promise, with the effort to build a new police station on Lafayette Street to follow in what would be Mullock’s second term.

In a campaign release Aug. 21, the mayor looked to the future, highlighting the planned extension of the city’s Promenade, the construction of the new police station and a new desalination plant to supply drinking water to all of Cape Island.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.