Ed Zipprich at home on River Road.

On Nov. 4, Red Bank voters will have four ballot choices for two seats on the borough council, now composed of four Democrats and two Republicans.

Both open seats, by happenstance, are held by Republicans: Grace Cangemi, who is running for re-election, and James Giannell, who is not running; he’s serving out the tail end of the term from which freeholder candidate John Curley resigned in July.

Today through Thursday, redbankgreen will post an interview a day with each of the candidates. Instead of transcripts, we’ve got the complete audio. The interviews are between 22 and 33 minutes in length. [See the editor’s note at bottom of story.]

The interviews are not meant to be literal head-to-head comparisons. Rather, they cover some common issues — including taxes, a community center and healthcare coverage for the mayor and council — while exploring each candidate’s own experiences a bit in order to shed some light on who they are and how they think.

We’ll go in reverse alphabetical order, starting with Democrat Ed Zipprich today, Republican John Tyler Jr. tomorrow, Democrat Juanita Lewis on Wednesday and ending with Cangemi on Thursday.

After losing his first bid for elective office last November to Grace Cangemi by just 59 votes out of nearly 2,200 cast, Ed Zipprich made it clear to supporters that, undaunted, he wasn’t going anywhere.

And in fact, he continued his work on the borough’s Historic Preservation Commission, helping shepherd through the council a plan to designate the Washington Street area as an historic district; serving on the planning board as an alternate and on the master plan review committee; and getting involved in the newly revived Red Bank Borough Education Foundation, which seeks to upgrade and preserve the 17-acre Primary School property as an environmental teaching center.

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Grace Cangemi will try to make it two out of three in November, when she runs for a full-term council spot.

The Asbury Park Press says that Republicans Grace Cangemi and John Tyler will reprise their council candidacies from last November in this year’s race for Red Bank’s governing body.

Cangemi, who won a one-year term, and Tyler, who falied in his first bid for office, will face off against Democrats Ed Zipprich and board of education vice president Juanita Lewis.

The Press reports that those four had filed as today’s 4p primary filing deadline approached.

No seats presently held by members of the 4-2 Democratic majority are on this year’s ballot. So this one is the GOP’s to hold on or lose.

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Democratic council contender Ed Zipprich has filed complaints with state and the county election-monitoring agencies, asking them to investigate the propriety of campaign signs that encourage voters to “re-elect” incumbent Republican Grace Cangemi.

Cangemi, who narrowly lost a general election last November, was chosen by a vote of the council on March 15 to replace Kaye Ernst, who resigned in January. She’s seeking the one-year balance of Ernst’s term, and faces Zipprich on the ballot.

Zipprich told redbankgreen this morning that he has filed complaints with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission and the Monmouth County Board of Elections, “asking them to investigate why she felt she could print ‘re-elect’ on her campaign signs.

“I think that she’s completely inappropriate and off-base on this,” he said. “I think she is stretching the truth. And if she does that with something as simple as a lawn sign, what else is she going to try to tell the public?”

Cangemi told us she hadn’t been aware of the complaints, which she disparaged.

“I think it’s more than a little ridiculous, and I think it’s a campaign ploy,” she said. “If that is Ed Zipprich’s biggest issue, then he has once again missed the point.

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