Real Democrats for County Commissioner

Regina Discenza is a graduate of John Jay College with a degree in criminal justice. Regina has been elected twice to the Lacey school board of education. Regina is an usher for St. Pius X.

Joseph Lamb is a retired C.P.A., Vice President of Finance, and board member of a two hundred-million-dollar international company. A Marine Vietnam veteran with a secret clearance at 18, two tours back-to-back, and was promoted to sergeant. His secondary MOS was nuclear, biological, chemical warfare-defensive measures.

Joseph was a basketball coach for over four hundred basketball games at St. Dominics in Brick and was a Eucharistic Minister. Joseph was also a guardian for his youngest brother, Timothy, for 6 1/2 years who was a low functioning individual with Down Syndrome.

Joseph was the Ocean County Coordinator for John Kerry in 2004. Joseph also ran a successful petition drive to let the Brick voters decide if the Republican administration should buy a dated ice-skating rink. The petition drive was so successful that Republican Mayor Acropolis pulled the purchase realizing it would have been a brutal defeat at the ballot box.

Our opponent, Kenneth Seda, in 2021 ran for County Commissioner as a Republican when he lived in Toms River. In 2022 Kenneth Seda moved to Manchester and ran for mayor and Karen Sugden ran for council as Democrats in Manchester and lost. Karen Sugden is Ken Seda’s running mate as County Commissioner. In the runoff between two Republican slates, they encouraged Democrats to vote and heavily criticized the Republican running for mayor that was supported by Sheriff Mastronardy. This helped the other Republican, who was supported by George Gilmore, to win. George Gilmore had been convicted of tax fraud and bank related convictions. This slick move helped George Gilmore broaden his support in Ocean County! If anything, they should have supported the ticket supported by Sheriff Mastronardy.

Since 2021 the Republican County Commissioners increased taxes 24.8 percent! That is an average of more than 8.2 percent each year over the three years! The County Commissioners pressure the Asbury Park Press to report tax rate decreases to hide the tax increase. The value of your property increased 46.9 percent since 2021 which is what the county uses not like your town which goes through a formal reassessment maybe every 15-20 years.

The County Commissioners purchased “Shooters,” a firearm range that was assessed at $3.9 million in Little Egg Harbor in 2023 for $10.5 million. Little Egg Harbor was at approximately 72 percent of assessment so the property at 100 percent would be valued at $5.4 million, a long way from $10.5 million with no permits from Little Egg Harbor for any property improvement. The county did not have a firearm range in the past and paid for their law enforcement to maintain their skills at a private range. There doesn't appear to be justification to own a range and now the county will also have to staff and operate it! And they could have used the firearm range at Ft. Dix which has availability.

In 2023 the Republican County Commissioners purchased the Election Systems and Software (ES&S) voting system for $10 million to replace the Dominion Voting System. Dominion had sued Fox News and others over spurious claims of election fraud and won substantial amounts. The irony is that the ES&S voting system in Monmouth County duplicated the votes in six districts in four municipalities in 2022. Was the reason to replace Dominion political? Now that some voters are concerned about the integrity of voting systems, why would anyone select the ES&S System?

In 2016 the Ocean County Prosecutor's office sent an undercover agent into a jewelry store owned by John Catalano to sell him jewelry. We do not know if the Prosecutor's office received a tip or this was a random incident. By law John Catalano is required to get the identification of the person selling jewelry and provide a receipt. This law is to prevent stores from acting as "fences" for stolen jewelry. John Catalano did neither and was convicted in Brick municipal court during a Democratic administration.

Yet John Catalano ran for State Assembly in 2019 and 2021 and this information was never mentioned by the Democratic campaign manager, Mitch Seim. In 2023 George Gilmore, the Ocean County Republican Chairman, had John Catalano, not seek reelection as a State Assemblyman and instead run for Mayor of Brick. Again the Democratic campaign manager, Mitch Seim, did not make this information available! John Catalano lost the election and is now the Deputy County Clerk! The County Clerk's office supervises elections! So now we have voting machines that have questionable integrity and at best a person that does not follow laws overseeing elections! How did John Catalano ever get hired for such an important position? Who was involved in the hiring process?