Carmelo Garcia with 2,287
Peter Biancamano with 1990
Frances Rhodes-Kearns with 1973
And the rest of the field:
Jean Marie Mitchell 1350
Cliff Godfrey 1319
Steve Feinstein 1231
Patricia Waiter 277
And yes, I'll say it, Kids First got their asses kicked. The winners got out their vote pure and simple.
These totals account for machine votes plus vote by mail (or in the case of this slate by courier). At the end of the day the "old guard "won by getting out their natural base of between 2000-2300 BOE voters and the Reform side did not. The total vote count was 3823 and in the past elections reform has needed about 5,000 plus votes to win. Due to the school vacation and other factors they didn't come close to that number.
While Kid's First still has a 5-4 majority for one year next year will be the real watershed election. My prediction is that next year Paula Ohaus will have another politically motivated CYA April meltdown in 2012 (that is what divas do) and that if Kid's First loses the majority much of the progress made recently at the BOE will be all for naught. Time will tell how this all plays out. Petrosino in? Toback out? I shutter at the thought and I don't have kids. I can only imagine what a concerned and informed parent might think. Problem is that not enough of them vote. If 5000- 5500 people turnout next year I'll bet the results will be different. Makes me glad I don't have kids.
How does this bode for the Municipal Elections on May 10th?
The 3rd and 4th Ward will go to the "Old Guard" but politicos knew that already. Apparently corruption (3rd Ward) and incompetence (4th Ward) isn't high on the voter's list of priorities but we knew that anyway. "Where's my $40 bitch!" in the 4th Ward and La Familia in he 3rd seem to be the recurring themes.
Kids First won in the 5th and 6th Wards and that bodes well for reform on May 10th with Jen Giattino and Peter Cunningham getting elected. Peter will need a runoff and Scott Delea will eventually be revealed for what he is, a sell-out to reform and good governance.
The 1st and 2nd Ward results tell me that a serious GOTV (get out the vote drive) will be needed to pull out victories for Eric Kurta and Tom Greaney but that they are still a possibility if and only if turnout is good for a municipal election. Beth is despised by many in her own ward but she now has one of Bob Menendez's to Washington DC street fighters working the ground game. Why does Bob Menendez care about Hoboken City Coucil elections? Follow the money to NJ Transit and Rockefeller Group project and I think you will have your answer.
The full results of the 2011 BOE election not including provisionals are below:
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