Flarity resigns as borough administrator

MANASQUAN — After eight-and-a-half years serving as the borough administrator, Tom Flarity officially resigned in a letter to the borough on June 6. 

At the June 16 meeting of the Manasquan Mayor and Council, a resolution was passed appointing former councilman Richard Read to fill the role in an interim capacity. 

Flarity told The Coast Star, “My experience as Manasquan’s business administrator has been beyond rewarding. I have had a front row seat to watch the municipal government process in action. So much more happens in the system than ever meets the eye of the casual observer.”

Flarity said he is departing from his role with the borough to pursue the next step in his career, but he declined to elaborate on the details.

“The incredibly hard work of the mayor, council and municipal staff in their public service roles is astounding. They are key to helping keep Manasquan the gem of a town that it is,” Flarity said.

“Our civic associations and volunteer commissions and committees are second to none in their roles and add immeasurably to Manasquan’s greatness. I thank everyone at the borough for their hard work and friendship over the years. I salute and will miss working with them all.”

Flarity concluded, “And to the residents with whom I had the great honor to pleasantly interact, I wish you all the best! (this excludes the nasty few, you know who you are and so do we).” 

Mayor Michael Mangan has been working alongside Flarity since he was first hired by the borough in 2017. 

Mangan told The Coast Star, “The working relationship that I’ve developed with Tom over the years is one of the closest of my life. The amount of respect I have for that man and what he did for our town is immeasurable. The passion that he poured into his job and just the amount that he cared about what he did and the people he worked for is something I don’t think I have ever seen at the levels that I saw in Tom. I am really, really going to miss working with him.”

At Monday night’s council meeting, Councilman Gregg Olivera bid farewell to Flarity and welcomed Read back to borough hall in his new capacity. 

“I just wanted to take this moment to thank Tom for his hard work and great work through the years, we had a great relationship. The great thing about Mr. Read sitting there is that we haven’t skipped a beat, continuity is something that’s great especially in an administrative role… We don’t expect any bumpy roads,” Olivera said during his committee report.

Read was hired on June 7 to serve as the borough’s interim business administrator at the annual salary of $174,000, according to the resolution. 

Read, a former councilman who served on the dais for two terms from 2016 to 2022, is stepping into the new role, although borough hall isn’t a change of scenery for him. Since January, Read has served as a confidential aide to the council, in which he assisted the council with everyday operations and public outreach. Read’s familiarity with the borough has been helpful with the transition into his new role, Flarity said.

Read told The Coast Star, “I am very excited for the opportunity and I’m grateful that the council has the trust in me to take this on. The work that I was doing as an aide to the mayor and council was working on projects and processes within the borough, so I was pretty familiar with a lot of things that were going on, and there is a lot going on.”

Prior to serving as an aide to the council, Read worked for 30 years in the Manasquan school district as a teacher and an administrator before retiring in 2023.

“In my 30 years at school, I felt like I served the town and the residents there and the students. I really enjoyed my time on council, solving problems and working on strategies and so on, so this is just an opportunity to continue to do that,” Read said.

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