Ken Gardner Will Challenge Sharon McAuliffe For 1st Ward Council Seat

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — Woodbridge resident Ken Gardner announced this week he will challenge Sharon McAuliffe for the 1st Ward Woodbridge town council seat.

The election will be in November. Gardner switched parties so he can run as the Republican for the seat. McAuliffe has been a 1st Ward Councilwoman for several years now (since 2022), and she will likely run for re-election this November.

She is an ally of Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac, as is the entire Woodbridge town council, all Democrats. McAuliffe is the owner of Knot Just Bagels, a Woodbridge business mainstay on Main Street.

There are no Republicans on the Woodbridge town council.

Gardner said he is running because "it's about cutting property taxes and controlling development," he told Patch Thursday. "These issues are community issues; it's not about either national party. People are frustrated with their property taxes and overdevelopment. The McAuliffe/McCormac team has been raising our taxes."

"The McAuliffe/McCormac team has raised my property taxes 10 percent in the last three years," said Gardner. "It’s time for a property tax cut. They continue to build 'monstrocities' (a play off the word 'monstrosities') in our downtown, and they have more building planned."

He said he also wants Woodbridge town government to be more transparent.

This is not Gardner's first time in politics: He was born and raised in Woodbridge Twp. At the young age of 25, he ran as a Republican and was elected to a Council seat at large; that same year he was also named Council president. He was a councilman for one term, four years.

Gardner then ran for Woodbridge mayor, as a Republican, and lost to Jim McGreevey.

In 2021, he ran as a Democrat for a Woodbridge Council seat and lost.

Gardner has been a volunteer Woodbridge firefighter for the past 35 years, was chief of the Woodbridge Fire Department, and was also a fire Commissioner for eight years. He is also a member of the St. James Roman Catholic Church Council of Fiscal Affairs and a trustee for the NJ League of Municipalities Educational Foundation. The League of Municipalities is a group of all the towns in New Jersey that shares information and learns from one another; the educational foundation, on which Gardner has sat since 2011, addresses the most important issues facing New Jersey towns, such as property taxes.

For years, Gardner has been a very active volunteer in the American Irish Association of Woodbridge, which puts on the Woodbridge St. Patrick's Day parade every year. He was a past parade chair.

Gardner said this week:

"I stopped the development of 3,000 condos as a 25-year-old Council President and was part of a team of residents who stopped a four-story apartment building across from Ross Street school. I can stop them again!"