Sea Bright’s proposed Flood Mitigation Project, which consists of a new bulkhead from the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge to the Waterways Townhouse Community, has prompted months of discussion in the borough. FILE PHOTO
By Emily Schopfer
SEA BRIGHT – Plans for a new bulkhead that divided Sea Bright residents in August have now divided the borough council. Council member Marc A. Leckstein filed a lawsuit Oct. 2 against the borough and against fellow council member Jeffery Booker, stemming from the borough’s adoption Sept. 15 of a $2.5 million bond ordinance for bulkhead improvements.
This bond ordinance would fund the proposed Flood Mitigation Project, the topic of an Aug. 18 public hearing. The project would provide new check valves, pump stations and roughly 1,350 feet of new, 7-foot-tall bulkhead between the North Beach, Downtown and South Beach sections of the borough along the Shrewsbury River.
Lawsuit Claims
According to the Oct. 2 lawsuit, the bond violates state law by using “Sea Bright taxpayer money to fund improvements for private residences.” The lawsuit also alleges a “conflict of interest” involving Booker, whose private residence would benefit from the new bulkhead.
Leckstein and Sea Bright residents Kevin Birdsall, Thomas Largey and Charles Lance Cunningham are plaintiffs in the suit. Booker and the Borough of Sea Bright are named defendants. According to the complaint, trial attorney Danielle Mastropiero of Freehold represents the plaintiffs.
Leckstein was first elected to the borough council in November 2023, and his current term expires Dec. 31. He is running for reelection in Sea Bright’s contested Nov. 3 general election.
The council appointed Booker to fill a vacancy left by council member Samuel A. Catalano’s resignation at the same Sept. 15 council meeting when the bond ordinance was adopted. Booker voted for the ordinance, alongside council members Erwin Bieber, Willima Keller and John Lamia. Leckstein was the lone vote against the bond ordinance.
“This case involves the arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and ultra vires (beyond the powers) actions taken by Sea Bright Council Member Jeffery Booker, to encroach upon the statutory rights and duties afforded to Council members Marc. A Leckstein and residents Kevin Birdsall, Thomas Largey and Charles Lance Cunningham,” the complaint reads.
The lawsuit claims Booker acted in a “conflict of interest,” as his personal residence “will be the beneficiary of one of the aforesaid new bulkheads.” Booker lives at The Waterways condo and townhome community along Ocean Avenue.
Plaintiffs are seeking “declaratory and injunctive relief” aimed at preventing Booker from “taking any further conflicted, illicit and self-serving actions,” such as “voting on resolutions and ordinances pertinent to properties in which he resides.”
The Waterways, along with other riverfront properties, “will benefit from the improvements as a new bulkhead will render their property more valuable, desirable and protected than other privately owned water-facing residences located within the Borough which will not be receiving bulkheads paid for by the taxpayers of Sea Bright.”
‘Constitutionality’ Questioned
The lawsuit claims the bond is unconstitutional because it uses public tax dollars for private improvements.
The Aug. 18 Flood Mitigation Project presentation outlined the projected costs to taxpayers. The proposed bond is $2.5 million, the “worst-case” project estimate, according to the Aug. 18 presentation. At $2.5 million, the project could cost Sea Bright property owners about $109 per year, or $9 a month, based on an average residential assessment, according to borough officials.
The complaint, which Leckstein made public in an Oct. 3 Facebook post, says the bond violates Article 8, Section 3, Paragraph 3 of New Jersey’s Constitution. That paragraph reads, “No donation of land or appropriation of money shall be made by the State or any county or municipal corporation to or for the use of any society, association or corporation whatever.”
According to online sources, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in the 1964 case Roe v. Kervick that a project does not automatically become unconstitutional because private property derives some benefit, as long as there is provable public purpose. Sea Bright Borough Council is arguing flood mitigation as the public purpose. Under the easement agreements between the borough and 11 privately owned properties along the planned project area, the bond funds the bulkhead installation, but the property owners are responsible for maintaining it after a one-year builder’s warranty.
Leckstein said that if the bond is found unconstitutional, it would require new, amended easement agreements.
The original plan was for the New Jersey Department of Public Transportation (NJDOT) to fund the Flood Mitigation Project, Leckstein said. In a May 20, 2026, NJDOT letter to Mayor Brian P. Kelly, the DOT said it lacked the legal authority to fund the project. “A project is considered eligible (for DOT funding) if the project is within public right-of-way and/or includes the acquisition, through purchase or lease, of equipment, facilities, or property useful for the transportation of people or goods,” the letter states. Due to the borough’s temporary easements to construct the bulkhead on private property before it reverts to the private property owners, “the NJDOT does not have the legal authority to fund this project,” the agency said.
What’s Ahead
“I am not against flood mitigation… I am not against bulkheads,” Leckstein said, but Sea Bright’s officials must “sit down and figure out how to do it correctly.”
The “correct” way, according to Leckstein, would be to have privately owned bulkheads “specially assessed,” fine homeowners to maintain them and bill them if the borough must step in to repair them.
Leckstein emphasized he was not seeking any monetary damages in the lawsuit, simply a “declarative judgment that these two things (the bond adoption and Booker’s vote) are not OK,” he said. This lawsuit was the “only avenue” that he and fellow plaintiffs “had for recourse,” he said.
“Although the borough remains fully confident that all of its actions were legal and proper, as this matter is now the subject of pending litigation, the borough will not comment on the specific allegations or claims raised in the lawsuit. We will allow the legal process to proceed and address those matters through the appropriate channels,” Kelly said.
Leckstein and Booker are two of four candidates running for two open council seats in the Nov. 3 election.
This article originally appeared in the October 8-14, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
