NOVEMBER 3, 2015, 11:40 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015, 11:50 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD.
Bergen County voters swept three Democratic freeholders back into office Tuesday, ensuring that their party will control county government for at least the next two years.
Incumbents Steve Tanelli and Tracy Zur easily defeated Republican challengers John Mitchell and Ken Tyburczy and Green Party candidate Richard Siegel for the pair of three-year seats that were up for grabs.
And Thomas Sullivan Jr. outpolled Republican Daisy Ortiz-Berger and Libertarian Peter Rohrman for the one-year unexpired term that was created when former Freeholder James Tedesco resigned to become County Executive in January.
With all precincts reporting, Zur was the top vote getter with 63,114 tallies. Tanelli was close behind, with 63,059 votes.
Trailing them were Mitchell with 50,805 votes, Tyburczy with 48,879 and Siegel with 4,085.
In the contest for the one-year term, Sullivan led with 62,746 votes, followed by Ortiz-Berger with 45,748 and Rohrman with 4,496.
Reached Tuesday night, Mitchell said he was preparing to call the Democrats to congratulate them on their victory.
“It doesn’t mean that we didn’t get out and work as hard as we can in getting the vote out,” he said. “But clearly, the Democrats have done a better job in doing that.”
Zur said the victory meant that voters approved of the work done by the Democratic majority on the freeholder board over the last three years, including consolidating the Bergen County Police force with the Sheriff’s Office.
“I think we put forward a vision of where we want to move this county and I think that resonated with the voters,” Zur said.
All three Democrats said their biggest challenge will be steering the future of the county-owned Bergen Regional Medical Center, where the contract with the current operator expires in March 2017.
Their victory means the Democrats will maintain a 5-2 majority on the board. The two incumbent Republicans are up for election next year, so county government will remain under Democratic control at least through January 2018.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen-county-democratic-freeholder-incumbents-reelected-1.1447657
