May 8,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the results are in in what may go down with what could be considered by many to one the most contentious elections in Ridgewood history . The challengers Janice Willett and newcomer Alexandra Harwin ran against Susan Knudsen and Michael Sedon, the incumbent mayor and deputy mayor, respectively.
With 59% of the vote the incumbents take a decisive win in the 2018 Ridgewood Village Council elections !
Candidate Number of Votes
Janice Willett 2025
Alexandra Harwin 2040
Susan Knudsen* 2989
Michael Sedon* 2973
This is Includes All Polling stations and absentee ballots
Next order of business: RECALL VOIGT!
Congrats, now get valley to start paying taxes!
Ok. Maybe they will pack their out of state money grubbing, developer loving, anti-Catholic ,”progressive” bags and leave town.
Along with the douche bag, Hans-Jurgen Lehmann should be given the boot from the zoning board as well.
OK everyone – Back to work.
Hahahahaahaha! 2,000+ (40% of the village) vote for someone completely unqualified because they hate the mayor and her loudmouth supporters! Details at 11!
Ha ha Roberta you’re never coming back. See yeah.
OK let’s re-construct and repave Waulnut and cottage
parking lots.
I was at Village Hall. NONE, repeat NONE of the Harwin Willett support team were there – no Aronsohn, no Sonenfeld, no Douche Bag Voigt, no Pucciarelli, no Hauck, no Hans, no Rurik, no Jan Civility Phillips, no no no. How nasty of them not to show up for their candidates. Wow, no surprise there. Oh wait, there was one person there. Siobhan Winograd. At least she gets credit for doing the right thing.
Hardly a landslide.
How could so many people vote for Willett and Harwin.
They were terrible candidates and still received 40%
They had no platform, insulted a lot of people and were still in the race….pretty sad.
Susan and Michael are nice people and need to step up their game.
They need to show some real leadership and move the Village forward.
Good Luck!
9:19, that’s the 40% of the Village dim and/or ideological enough to vote for someone who merely spouts nonsensical tripe about “social justice” and “progressive” ideas with no real experience when all we need are the proverbial potholes filled in. This 40 percent would probably also vote for Eric Schneiderman because he SAID he was for ending “male supremacy” and was part of #MeToo when recent events have revealed that to be just more hypocritical pandering. I am looking forward to being able to attend VC meetings without fear of being scutinized for my “white privilege”, “toxic masculinity” and my other genetics-based “microaggressions” and being heard as just another citizen who pays their taxes on time.. I will also look forward to hearing the viewpoints of other tax-paying villagers without regard for their genetics-based characteristics beyond their control. We really dodged a bullet tonight.
DUMP VOIGT NOW!
OK Mayor and Council let’s get Bergen county to come to Ridgewood and start repairing their county roads.
Thank you
Dr . Drew
Next order of business, OUST Mr. Voigt. Citizens can do this.
The campaign reminded me of an old Harvard anecdote:
The Harvard-Yale game is at the Yale Bowl and a young Harvard man and young Yale man stand side by side at a urinal. The Harvard boy finishes and is almost out the lavatory door when the Yalie calls after him: “Excuse me, dear chap, but here, at Yale, we are taught to wash our hands after we urinate.” The Harvard boy looks back and puts the Yalie in his place with the response, “Well, fine fellow, back at Harvard we are taught to not urinate on our hands.”
Harwin ran like the Yalie – – with unclean hands. The “fresh voice” was betrayed by, among many other things, the mud and slime of anti-Church rhetoric and the so terribly misplaced invocation of Nazism and the Parkland tragedy. What was she thinking?
I agree 9:53. We’re comfortable with “Ward you were a little tough on the Beave last night” council meetings from the 50’s. I just hate it when my ears itch because my head is so far in the sand. But Yes! Doing nothing shall set us free. And we have exactly the council to do that. Nothing. Dodged a bullet indeed.
The cream always rises to the top!
Congrats to Susan and Mike!
Harwin got way too many votes. I would say about half of the votes she got came from newcomers who have no idea what’s happening but picked easily the 2 top choices. Others of course are the leftist nuts.
Susan and Mike you have a great responsibility to making this town Great Again 🙂 First step, PAVE THE STREETS. Second, minimize to max the size of garage.
MRGA
“The people reserve unto themselves the power to recall, after at least one year of service, any elected official in this State or representing this State in the United States Congress. The Legislature shall enact laws to provide for such recall elections. Any such laws shall include a provision that a recall election shall be held upon petition of at least 25% of the registered voters in the electoral district of the official sought to be recalled. If legislation to implement this constitutional amendment is not enacted within one year of the adoption of the amendment, the Secretary of State shall, by regulation, implement the constitutional amendment, except that regulations adopted by the Secretary of State shall be superseded by any subsequent legislation consistent with this constitutional amendment governing recall elections. The sufficiency of any statement of reasons or grounds procedurally required shall be a political rather than a judicial question.”
Good outcome… not overall surprising that harwin got 40% given massive campaign funding and paid advertising. She’s completely out of touch – when asked about Ridgewood issues earlier today at the train station all she could say “I am a commuter too”.
Fresh Indirect.
Can we finally remove all the advertising signs on all the yards?
On the bright side, the challengers can now kick back and take a break from attending all those village council meetings, educating themselves on the minutae of Village issues and volunteering for those committees.
Oh wait…
If you pair the incumbents’ versus challengers’ votes you get a split of 59.5% vs 40.5% or a margin of victory of 19.0% .
Only 5 presidential elections have had margins wider than this, all in the 20th century. They are in order of smallest (22.6%) to largest (26.2%) margins: Johnson (1964), Nixon (1972), Roosevelt (1936), Coolidge (1924) and Harding (1920).
Congrats, James. This doesn’t happen without you.
Now pave the streets for godsakes.
Congrats to the winners
It’s not a mandate but many of us would never vote for someone like Harwin who sent nasty political mailers and had no ideas but simply ran as the “anti incumbent”.
As another poster pointed out, her support must have been from the newbies in town. Based upon the location of the lawn signs I’d have to agree.
Historically incumbents lose their popularity (siting of the firehouse, village hall renovations by prior councils) so for incumbent candidates I’d say they did very well “bitch slapping” at least one nasty challenger .
Thanks to the Ridgewood blog for pointing out the connections so we could see who was on the nasty challengers team and “connecting the dots”.
Hi. My name is Alexandra Harwin. I ran for Ridgewood Village Council and got my ass kicked. .
Harwin found her way to Village Hall last night. Well, that was the first and last time.
Some of the comments on this and other posts are absolutely disgraceful. Susan Knudsen and Michael Sedon won. Take the high road people and stop name calling, stop the vulgarity, and the mudslinging.
act like an a$$ be prepared to be called an a$$
The majority of lawyers and M.D.’s who live in Ridgewood probably voted for Harwin. They run in packs.
Everyone warned Harwin that endorsements from Aronsohn, Hauck, and Pucciarelli would certainly result in the kiss of death, and look what happened. Some people just refuse to listen.
Hawin embraced it , she is one of them
I think 943’s comment is the most telling. Where were these pillars of Ridgewood that sought to prop up Harwin as their champion last night to console their candidate and shake the hands of the opposition?
When a candidate infiltrates our village with the manifest intent to promote outside interests inimical to our own, advances that candidacy by generating animus and calumny, and is assisted by outside organization and outside financing, that interloper ought be prepared to reap the derision sown so thoughtlessly by that person’s own campaign.
Sad that it’s so difficult for people to be able to make a case without name calling and rude comments. I didn’t vote for Alexandra Harwin because she was an a$$ or a b!tch or a nut. I didn’t vote for her because I didn’t believe she had understood the issues. Apparently that’s too difficult for people.
5:59, yes, out they go. BUT SAVE!!! Good to keep in the car in the winter in case it gets stuck in ice!
My favorite sign and a nice break from the rest was nestled into the front lawn of a house on the north side of Spring St. just east of Maple:
OBAMA ’08.
10:48 and 10:50: BRAVO. Been there/done that with an electing a brand-new resident with political aspirations. Fresh-faced Aronsohn fooled a lot of the people a lot of the time when he did the same.
Hey 9:19 am, I’m an MD and voted for Knudsen and Sedon (as any educated person would). Your logic appears, um, flawed…