OCEAN CITY, N.J. — The old Ferris wheel still looms over town, yet as another summer approaches, the future of the defunct Gillian’s Wonderland Pier is still in limbo.
But one thing will be decided before Memorial Day: who the town’s next mayor will be.
Will voters give a fifth four-year term to incumbent Mayor Jay Gillian, who made the decision to close his family’s amusement park in October 2024, then declared personal bankruptcy after amassing nearly $6 million in debt?
Gillian says all of that shouldn’t matter to voters. He doesn’t accede to any connection between his record running Wonderland and his record running Ocean City.
The nonpartisan election is May 12. The office pays $40,000 annually, raised in 2024 from $20,600.
“I absolutely love this job,” Gillian, 61, said in an interview, adding, in a reference to the city’s municipal budget: “I have the competency you need to run a $120 million corporation.”
The competition
Gillian has two challengers: Council member Keith Hartzell, who has been most resistant to the seven-story hotel proposed by Wonderland owner Eustace Mita. Hartzell narrowly lost to Gillian four years ago, after warning that a high-rise hotel on the Boardwalk could be in the city’s future.
Also running is Pete Madden, the current council vice president and an owner and managing broker at Goldcoast/Sotheby’s real estate office in Ocean City. He has been pro-hotel since the beginning.
Both challengers say the town is ready for new leadership and that their divergent views on the direction of the Wonderland site at 600 Boardwalk reflect the views of the voters they have talked to while knocking on doors.
“The town’s fairly divided,” says Hartzell. “In any situation, when there’s a division, you compromise.”
Says Madden: “I was the only one who was standing behind the hotel being a good decision for Ocean City. Now everybody else has decided they agree.”
Regardless of who becomes mayor, the city council is moving ahead on the Wonderland site, voting unanimously earlier this year to appoint an outside attorney to advise them. The vote was framed by council members as a way to keep the current administration separate from Wonderland decision-making.
Here’s a look at the candidates.
Jay Gillian
Gillian has pushed back, emotionally at times, against suggestions that he has personally profited from the closure of Wonderland.
“Over the past year, my family and I have heard claims about the closing of Wonderland and that I somehow benefited from it,” he said in a video announcing his campaign. “That simply isn’t true. Nobody loved Wonderland more than I did. It was my life, my business, my legacy. I lost everything trying to keep it alive.”
The failure of Wonderland should not reflect on his record as mayor, he insists.
In an interview with the Ocean City Sentinel, Gillian put his personal and professional crises this way: “Obviously, I’m a better mayor than I was an amusement operator.”
Gillian mostly deflects questions about what should replace the amusement park, saying it’s an issue for council and Mita to decide, not the mayor. The current zoning does not allow for Mita’s 252-room hotel on the Boardwalk. The city’s planning board deadlocked 4-4 on whether to recommend declaring the site in need of rehabilitation, as Mita has requested, sending the matter back to council.
“This has always been about the owner and council getting into a room and figuring out what to do,” Gillian said in an interview with The Inquirer. “It’s a community decision. I want something spectacular there. I don’t want a blighted property there. That property has been in my family for 62 years.”
In addition to initially bailing Gillian out by buying the Wonderland property for $8 million and allowing Gillian to continue to run the amusement pier, Mita holds a $1 million mortgage on Gillian’s home.
But Gillian would rather point to other things in his municipal record, like “clean audits and low taxes,” and a new pump project in the south end of town.
“Beach replenishment is taken care of,” he said. “We’ve cleaned up our back bays. We’re always prepared for whatever happens, hurricane or COVID. When something comes up, we just take care of it.”
Gillian acknowledges that rising property values have made the town, like other Shore towns, a tough one for young year-round families to buy into, but says those same rising property values have “put people through college.”
Pete Madden
Madden, 48, the father of four, positions himself as the candidate of change. He’s originally from Philly, and moved in 2004 to Ocean City, where his then-wife’s family was from.
His campaign says Gillian’s entanglement with Mita and history with the Wonderland site have made him reluctant to lead the city in a firm direction.
“I think there needs to be transparency and decisive decision-making,” Madden said. “I think a lot of this comes down to leadership.”
He said he thinks the town, though resistant to change, is ready for a transplant like himself to be mayor. “I grew up coming here,” he said. “I worked at Johnson’s popcorn on the Boardwalk. Although not truly a local, I’ve got a local‘s perspective.”
With many in town wedded to the idea of Ocean City remaining as it’s been for a century, Madden says there’s a balance that can be struck. He likes that the town is dry but wants an affordable jitney service to help people go back and forth at night from towns that are not.
He wants better cell service in the summer, when 200,000 people can jam the service.
“People want fresh new ideas, energy infused into the town,” he said. “I think I can help bring it. I think that you can keep the integrity of the town while keeping an open mind to new ideas.”
Keith Hartzell
Council member Keith Hartzell, who turns 70 later this month, is making his second run for mayor.
He has been resistant to Mita’s proposal since the start, arguing that the height of the proposed hotel was excessive and that there was not enough parking.
At this point, when even the Save Wonderland people have accepted that an amusement park is not going to resurface on the site, Hartzell is advocating for a smaller boutique hotel in the rear of the property, with entertainment or retail to front on the Boardwalk.
Parking, in general, is a priority issue for Hartzell, a prominent real estate holder in town.
He says people are coming to town for two or three days, and that groups of renters are coming in multiple cars. He’s advocating for a change that could require new construction to have as many parking spots as bedrooms.
He says he’s also in favor of converting lawns to impervious surfaces to allow more parking.
After a year of contentious debate, he says he’s the compromise candidate.