HOWELL – Two incumbents and a two-time candidate will fill the three open seats on Howell Township’s Board of Education.
Incumbents Dr. Denise M. Lowe and Albert ‘Al’ Miller, and newcomer Ira Thor won the Nov. 7 election.
Lowe, who will now serve her third term on the board, received 6,183 votes.
Miller, who has served on the board since 2011, received 5,847 votes.
“I would like to thank the Howell Residents for their Trust and Support by re-electing me to the Howell Twp. BOE. It is truly an honor to represent the students, staff and taxpayers of this great District,” Miller said in the statement to The Howell Times. “In my next term I plan on working with the BOE Advocacy committee and our State Legislators on coming up with plans to ease the burden of school taxes on the local property taxes. I also want to try and increase community interaction with our community.”
Thor, who ran in last year’s Board election as well as an open seat in July, received 5,709 votes.
“First, I’m really excited about the opportunity! More than 5,700 men and women in Howell thought enough of my leadership and ideas to select my name and that’s a responsibility I’ll never take lightly. I’m very proud to have been elected. I’ve served on a number of national boards in my career and I’m going to use that experience to help my community here in Howell,” Thor said in a statement to the newspaper. “My plans are really everything I talked about during the last few months. I want to find creative ways to make our schools and our community better. Close to 69% of our taxes go towards our schools. We need to be responsible with that money and make sure we’re spending it wisely and to save, where possible. We need to find ways to bridge any achievement gap that might exist with other school districts in the Freehold Regional system. Also, we need to find better ways to engage with our community and that’s an issue I personally want to see us improve on in the next year. People often feel they can’t trust some of their leaders in town, so I want to change that. People know they can trust me and I want to be that positive addition to the Board. I’m going to be extremely approachable and I will encourage people to reach out to me. Next month I’ll be hosting my first ‘Coffee Conversation’ where people can come out and talk about their ideas and concerns on a weekend morning. I want to make this a monthly opportunity to connect with the community.”
The fourth candidate was Angel Sanchez, who filled the Board vacancy in July when member Jeanne DePompo stepped down. He received 4,568 votes.
The Monmouth County Clerk’s office reported 104 write-in votes.
