Ray Coles

Raymond G. Coles (born 1959) is Democratic politician who is the 2017 mayor of Lakewood, a township in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. He is also committee member whose term ends December 31, 2018. He also served as mayor in 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008. As of 2016 the township had a population of approximately 100,758 residents.
Background
Coles moved from Staten Island, New York in 1978 with his wife Jnaus, with whom he has three children. He has served Lakewood Soccer Club, as chairman of the Lakewood Development Corporation, vice chairman of the Lakewood Housing Authority, commissioner of the municipal utilities authority, board member of the Strand Theater, and chairman of the Ocean County Catholic Charities Advisory Board.
He co-founded Tek Net, an ophthalmological supply company in 1989.
Lakewood Township Committee
Lakewood Township is governed under the township form of government. The five-member Township Committee is elected directly by the voters at-large in partisan elections to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either one or two seats coming up for election each year as part of the November general election in a three-year cycle. At an annual reorganization meeting, the Township Committee selects one of its members to serve as mayor and another as deputy vayor.
Coles joined the Lakewood Township Committee in 2001. Coleman was first selected as mayor in 2002. He served as Mayor in 2008, when the Democrats had the majority on the committee. Coles was again appointed mayor January 2, 2017 by the Lakewood Township Committee for a term of one year on. The choice was unprecedented as committee majority is Republican, and the mayor is typically chosen from the party majority.
Coles is a propopent of the Monmouth Ocean Middlesex Line to the fast-growing township.

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