Looking Back on a Long Campaign and a Busy Election Day

Good morning, all.

A long – and sometimes bitter – campaign came to a close yesterday as voters in Barnegat made their choices, returning two Board of Education incumbents to three-year seats and selecting one of the three challenger candidates, Alice Olker, to join them.

Barnegat also joined the majority of districts in the area in passing its budget; the results statewide appear to show similar results. That’s a big change from last year, when fewer than half of New Jersey’s school budgets passed.

The margins of victory here for candidates and for the budget were narrow, and turnout was high. Today we’ll have some more analysis of election results, including a more detailed look at what voters were saying at the polls across the township yesterday. So hopefully you’re not too election-weary yet.

You'll notice the site looks a little different starting today. The new design has been rolled out on sites across Patchdom. The biggest change is that the events calendar is much more prominent, so you can see quickly and easily what's happening in the area.

We’re also heralding the return of our activity stream – the comment rail on the homepage. I want to thank everybody for their patience as we closed down election-related comments in the leadup to voting day. It was a necessary evil.

I’m glad I’ll be able to start seeing what you have to say about the campaign that was, but keep in mind that the same rules as always still apply when it comes to commenting: no bad language and no personal attacks on people – no matter how much you hate their politics or their patrons.

Besides election follow-up, today we’re bringing you news of kids coming together to do good – organized by a student who wants to improve the image of Barnegat's youth as well as the town itself.

We'll also take a look at an organic veggie co-op that operates statewide and is getting more popular in our area.

Stay with us – and drop me a line to say hi and tell me what your election day was like.

Graelyn.