Port Chester elects first Latino trustee: Winners are Marino, Didden, Brakewood, Branca, Kenner, Terenzi
Port Chester voters elected the first Latino, Luis Marino, to the village board in Tuesday’s election for all six trustee seats. Village Clerk Joan Mancuso announced the unofficial tallies after 1 a.m.
The winners:
Bart Didden, independent, 2,576 votes, 13.3 percent of the vote
Daniel Brakewood, Democratic incumbent, 2,526 votes, 13 percent
John Branca, Conservative former mayor, 2,088 votes, 10 .7 percent
Luis Marino, Democrat, 1,962 votes, 10.1 percent
Joseph Kenner, Republican incumbent, 1,402 votes, 7.2 percent
Saverio “Sam” Terenzi, Republican, 1,323 votes, 6.8 percent
Those are the six trustees who will serve on the village board until 2013. With the mayor serving as the seventh village board member, no party will hold a four-vote majority, at least according to the candidates’ ballot lines. Of the seven who will serve on the board, three are Democrats, two Republicans, one Conservative and one independent.
Ironically, the top vote-getter played a role in the voting rights case that suspended elections since 2006 and yielded the new cumulative voting system. Didden’s involvement in a past election mailer was brought into the case to demonstrate race-based campaigning in Port Chester.
It’s unclear what the turnout was among the 10,000 registered voters, due to the cumulative voting method of balloting. More to come on that.
Here are tallies for the unsuccessful candidates:
Gregory Adams, Democratic incumbent, 1,272 votes, 6.5 percent
Gene Ceccarelli, independent, 1,236 votes, 6.4 percent
Richard Cuddy, Republican, 1,033, 5.3 percent
Fabiola Montoya, Republican, 993 votes, 5.1 percent
Philip Semprevivo, Republican, 902 votes, 4.6 percent
Michael Scarola, Republican, 760 votes, 3.9 percent
John Palma, write-in candidate, 712 votes, 3.7 percent
Anthony Saline, Democratic former trustee, 654 votes, 3.4 percent
“Fluffy,” a write-in, 1 vote, 0.0 percent
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! Some MNRR folks are unaware (it was two railroads before...
[...] (Results are posted here.) [...]
Apparently, the plaintiffs are unsatisfied with the results they attempted to engineer. “Randolph McLaughlin, the Pace Law professor representing another plaintiff in the Justice Department’s lawsuit, noted that the goal of this election system was to permit the election of a Hispanic-preferred candidate, not necessarily a Hispanic candidate. ” More than a curious statement.
Not content to bend the voting process in the favor of a preferred group, McLaughlin now wants to actually determined the SPECIFIC Hiispanic candidate that meets his political litmus test. Who is this guy anyway? Who is he to think that he can barge into a community and shove a candidate down the throats of the voting community? And, more amazingly, goes so unchallenged by forces in the media and forces in even the Hispanic community … who must feel shamed at the blatant inequity here.
Has McLaughlin ever contemplated the possible blowback from his actions? That perhaps now (and down the road) he may have made the Hispanic segment of the community into a target group … and that once sympathetic villagers have been abused and are more likely to assume a more rigid stance? That the new board has more aggressive members who want more aggressive government action in dealing with code enforcement and other issues that relate directly to the Hispanic segment? Did (and does!) McLaughlin think that this vote has no lasting repercussions in this village? And that he might, in fact, be responsible for elevated tensions?
It is easier to change the law than to change the hearts and minds of people. McLaughlin should carefully xamine the fallout from his quest … because it might look nothing like his utopian result. Nothing at all.