Democrats Win Total Control Of Town Board
Democrats were the victors across the board in East Hampton Town on Tuesday night, securing every key office and winning complete control of the town board.
"Certainly the voters detected that the Democratic team was the group best suited to keep East Hampton on a track that would make things better," Bob Schaeffer, the co-chairman of the Democratic Committee, said yesterday. As far as he knows, this is the first time in East Hampton history that the Democrats have enjoyed such a sweep.
"I think it means a continuation of the progressive work that the McGintee administration has started."
Supervisor Bill McGintee will go on to a second term, Councilwoman Pat Mansir, who ran on the Democratic ticket for the first time, will have a third term on the town board, and their running mate, Brad Loewen, will have his first.
Fred Overton, who also switched tickets, won 58.5 percent of the vote for town clerk, according to unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections, besting Len Bernard, a former town board member and town budget officer. Mr. Overton has served as the clerk for six years.
The Democratic highway superintendent, Christopher Russo, easily beat his opponent, Juliette Parker, to win a ninth term. He was also the high vote getter of the day with 4,185 votes, or 67.5 percent. Town Justice Catherine A. Cahill was not far behind him, winning 3,869 votes to claim a victory over the Republican Richard Haeg and Stuart Vorpahl of the Independence Party.
In a much closer race, the Democratic candidate, Eugene DePasquale III, also appears to have won a second term as town assessor. He had just 270 votes more than Tim Bock before absentee ballots were counted, but those tend to favor Democrats in East Hampton.
The only wins for the Republicans were for town trustee. The G.O.P. took six of nine seats on that board, but two incumbents, Thomas E. Knobel and Timothy A. Kromer, were unseated.
Aside from that race, the Democrats had much to celebrate yesterday. "I think it's an affirmation of the work that we're doing," Mr. McGintee said yesterday. "We have a message. We have something to offer to the people, and we don't hold any punches."
"Sometimes if you have to do something you have to do it, and I think people like that and people support that," he said. "We are representative of everybody in the community. We all come from different backgrounds, and are more geared toward problem solving."
Mr. McGintee won re-election by a comfortable margin of 760 votes. With 3,659 pulling the lever for him, he got 55.8 percent of the vote. Mr. Walker got 2,899 votes and won in Wainscott, one district in East Hampton Village, and one in Montauk.
In the town board race, Ms. Mansir was the high vote getter, winning 3,690 ballots. Mr. Loewen got 3,157 votes. Trailing him by 289 votes was Bill Gardiner, a second-time candidate. Larry Penny, his running mate, won 2,361 votes.
Mr. Gardiner was one of the top two in nine of 19 districts, but it was not enough to overcome Mr. Loewen's strong showing in Sag Harbor, Springs, and several districts in East Hampton.
The election was a blow for the Republicans, who lost the supervisorship and a town board seat two years ago and will now find themselves with few representatives at Town Hall.
"I think they focused on singular issues without any significant plans or ideas for future improvements in East Hampton," Mr. Schaeffer said, adding that the town's G.O.P. seems to be in "disarray."
Mr. Knobel said his party would probably meet in the next 10 days to "vent remarks, comments, and concerns" about the election. That meeting will guide the Republican Party as it moves forward, he said.
None of the Republicans but Mr. Knobel stopped by the Democratic gathering spot at Rowdy Hall to concede defeat and congratulate the winners, "which is unusual in races such as this," Mr. Schaeffer said. Other than that, the victory could not have been sweeter.
"We are extremely pleased and happy with the outcome," he said.