Candidates Set for Cape May City Council Election

CAPE MAY – The deadline to file as a candidate for the November municipal elections was Sept. 6. In Cape May, where four of the five seats on the city council are on the ballot, an interesting campaign is in the offing.
The only member of the city council not up for reelection is Mayor Zack Mullock, who ousted former Mayor Clarence Lear in 2020. Now, Lear is running for a council seat. 
Of the current incumbent council members, Shaine Meier and Lorraine Baldwin are seeking new, full, four-year terms on the governing body. 
Michael Yaeger, appointed to the unexpired term of Chris Bezaire, is running for the remaining two years of Bezaire’s term.  
Current Deputy Mayor Stacy Sheehan is not running for reelection.  
Along with Lear, Mark DiSanto and Maureen McDade are seeking full-term seats on the council.
DiSanto first ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in 2018. DiSanto has pushed for the development of a city-owned municipal marina which he feels would be a major economic boon to the town. 
McDade is the current first alternate member of the city’s Zoning Board. She has not previously run for city council. McDade is also a member of the board of directors of the Taxpayers Association of Cape May.
Running against Yeager for the two-year term will be Patricia Hendricks, who, with Lear, lost her seat on council in the 2020 election. 
Hendricks, in her campaign announcement, spoke of a need for “Balancing Tradition with Progress.” During their terms in office, both Hendricks and Lear had been seen as supporters of appropriately using the state’s redevelopment statutes. 
That included the area of the once historic Beach Theater where ICONA CEO Eustace Mita wants to build a seven-story hotel and retail complex in the style of the grand hotels of an earlier era. Mita is specifically seeking a redevelopment area designation which the current city council has resisted.
With seven candidates on the ballot vying for four seats and with a mixture of incumbents, past council members and new voices, the municipal campaign in Cape May could be among the most interesting in the county this year.