The mayor of Irvington, New Jersey, is so proud of his 90-pound weight loss, he sent his constituents a glossy, four-page mailer that touts his personal health journey. But a political challenger now says the mailer is essentially a campaign ad masquerading as a public service announcement.
“Listen, we applaud him losing weight, but he sent this out at taxpayers’ expense,” said Paul Inman, a former Irvington Council Member who is now running to unseat the slimmed-down incumbent, Mayor Tony Vauss.
The flyer, which was mailed around the beginning of 2026, proclaims Vauss’s shedding of 90 pounds “is igniting Irvington’s wellness revolution.” It included Vauss’s account of how he changed is diet, started taking the GLP-1 drug Mounjaro (tirzepatide), and tamed his diabetes.
The flyer included contact information for the township’s health department along with a handful of healthy lifestyle tips. It also included eleven color photos of Vauss. Inman says the document resembles a campaign ad, only instead of using Vauss’s political headquarters for the return address, it originates from the Irvington Township Municipal Building.
“I believe he is using tax dollars for his re-election bid,” Inman added. “You cannot have a full ad about him, again promoting himself.”
Vauss has so far declined an interview request, and he has not responded to questions from the I-Team about how much the mailers cost or how they were paid for. But in a letter sent to NBC New York, Irvington Township Attorney Ramon Rivera expressed broad frustration with the I-Team’s coverage, and appeared to suggest mailers like the one touting Vauss’s weight loss are in the public interest.
“Why would it inherently be a misuse of taxpayer resources for a municipality to communicate information to the taxpayers who fund it?” wrote Rivera. “Why is sending information to residents about Township matters being framed as self-evidently improper?”
In March, Inman filed a state ethics complaint about another mailer sent out by Vauss. That flyer, an eight-page document also originating from the township municipal building, takes aim at the former New Jersey comptroller, accusing the state watchdog of “character assassination” and of “manufacturing a scandal” when he released an audit report last summer, concluding that Irvington wasted opioid settlement money on a pair of concerts.
Vauss has argued the two concerts raised awareness about addiction.
In his ethics complaint, Inman accused Vauss of “using Irvington Township public funds to repair his reputation while campaigning for re-election.”
Scott Salmon, an attorney who represents and advises New Jersey municipalities, said it is common for mayors to put their names or pictures on public service announcements or on welcome signs at the entrances to their towns. But he said self-promotion rarely goes beyond that.
“This situation we’ve seen in Irvington definitely goes beyond the norm, I think, in any municipality I’ve ever seen,” Salmon said. “It does look bad. It does have potential legal ramifications.”
He added that the mailer criticizing the former comptroller could be considered a violation of New Jersey’s Local Government Ethics Law, which prohibits a government official from using his or her official position to secure unwarranted privileges or advantages.
“The timing, I think, is the worst part of this for the mayor, in the sense of this [comptroller audit] report came out months and months and months ago and now this [mailer] is being sent out 2 or 3 months before the election,” Salmon said.
Irvington’s mayoral election is non-partisan and scheduled to take place on Tuesday, May 12.
Inman, who has run for Irvington mayor and lost before, acknowledged that Vauss has the support of some of New Jersey’s most powerful Democrats. The incumbent mayor recently touted an endorsement from Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
Gov. Sherrill declined to comment on the Irvington election or on whether Mayor Vauss’s mailers should be considered political ads or public service announcements. The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, which processes local government ethics complaints, has not yet responded to questions about the complaint filed by Inman.
“It’s really alarming that no one from our local, no one from our county or state, is sounding an alarm,” Inman said. “These are serious issues and violations that this Mayor is conducting.”
