Urbanization and Valley Hospital Expansion crowd looks to a win Ridgewood municipal election in unofficial results
Tuesday May 8, 2012, 9:31 PM
the staff of Ridgewood blog
( RIDGEWOOD-NJ) In unofficial results Ridgewood residents elected Paul Aronsohn and Albert Pucciarelli to serve on the next Village Council.
Unofficial results give Gwenn Hauck, with 1,727 votes, the third seat and a slight edge over Mayor Killion .However, provisional ballots have not been counted and incumbent Mayor Keith Killion is close behind with 1,711 votes. The Village Clerk’s office is currently estimating that it could take up to five days to count the provisional ballots.
According to the unofficial results, Aronsohn was the top vote-getter with 2,479 votes, while Pucciarelli had 2,078 votes received the second most. Jane Shinozuka and Russell Forenza received 1,484 and 817 votes, giving a victory to “Urbanization” crowd and perhaps signaling the end of the “Village of Ridgewood”.
Can’t wait for the new Graydon, condos, more turf fields, new Valley Hospital, and lower taxes! Oh and flood mitigation, full funding the library and did I say lower taxes?
let the games begin!
Congrats Audrey, First you took over the the Planning Board and now the Council. How far will you go?
Welcome to Valleywood.
It’s a sad day in Ridgewood : (
It would have helped if somebody actually voted
Thed
Is there a chance that the absentee ballots will push Killion to the top? It is very close.
What in the hell were we thinking yesterday…?
OK…I can understand Pooch and Aronsohn winning, but Gwenn…reallly???
KIllion couldn’t muster enough votes to overtake her…wow. Daddy must be so proud!
Clearly voters overwhelmingly recognized that the financial sustainability of the village is more important than Valley, Graydon and turf. It is no different than the national budget debate. It is funny that people would label these candidates as pro-urbanization (pave the village) or pro-Valley. From what I heard them say, they don’t want to change Graydon. They don’t want more turf fields. They don’t agree with the Valley plans that have been submitted to date. They want to stop the revolving door of tenants in the CBD, help promote a vibrant downtown and ensure that any developmnent is consistent with the character of Ridgewood. Most importantly, they want to reign in the budget expenses that are growing at an unsustainable rate and find ways to reduce or hold taxes steady. That sounds like a pretty reasonable platform that most residents should agree with, other than the people who want to pave Graydon.
One way to mitigate our tax problem is to TAX VALLEY. They obviously have the money since two of our new council people raised it for them.
It would have been nice if somebody voted
Thed
People get over the Valley BS it is not the only concern in town. Glad you lost.
Dump Trucks, already on their way to Valley now. Double the size, Double the towns services, and more than double the traffic. Welcome to ValleyWood, it use to be a nice community. MT
Who voted morons with millions?
#6, absentee ballots are already included in the count and were actually the first to appear on the scoreboard last night (at the bottom, labeled “Abs”) before the district numbers began to arrive.
“Provisional” ballots represent votes by voters who demanded their right to vote even though the records didn’t show their names properly. The chances that that happened 17 times in one day in one town seem slim. I think we have to reconcile ourselves to these as the winners and try to move on. It isn’t easy.
As for those who were afraid they’d melt in the rain and regret the results, shame on you. These elections are often close and in the past have been even closer than this.
I’m disappointed to see the commentary from the negative folks whose candidates lost. Mr. Killion gave the village manager (the same man who as mayor of another town gave his indicted friend a “housing commission” job) anything he wanted, in a cozy relationship benefitted both men, certainly not the village. The current council needed a 7+% increase in taxes to operate??…..really?
The 3 newly elected candidates now have a mandate to follow through on their campaign promises, beginning with a zero based budgeting process.
We should all work with them to help bring about the changes necessary to bring down unnecessary spending, and retain the character of the village.
C’mon people, your candidates lost, get over it and lets work together. Your negativity will never get anything accomplished…Mr. Killian had too cozy of a relationship w/Mr. Gabbert and it was very costly to the village. The new candidates now need to follow through on their promises, and we should all hold them to them. I truly believe that a zero-based budget process will uncover spending that is unnecessary and costly.
It’s probably contractual, but over $6m budgeted for unused “sick pay”? Do any of you get to accumulate unused “sick pay” and receive it upon retirement?
For #12 Valley may not be “the only concern in town,” but, in the long run, if it were to go through as planned, it will make any other concerns seem trivial.By the way, you can always address budgets and CBD issues. Once that building goes up, watch everything else go down. No matter where you live in this town, you will feel the adverse effects.