Hi this is George Cook the owner/creator of
www.letstalkonestly.com. It's with great pride that I tell you that my team, Team Menza ( Democrats independent of local democratic committee ) has advanced to a runoff election in our little town of Hillside NJ. It may not seem much but we went up against the Hillside Democratic Committee ( HDC ) which had $56,000 and hundreds of volunteers from the county as well as two other full slates with just $9,000 and abot 30 hard working volunteers and got 37% while the HDC got 43% of the vote forcing a runoff since the winner has to have 51%. Problem is now we have one more month of campaining....lol
Hillside candidates head to June run-off
by Erin Eileen O'Neill/For The Star-Ledger
Tuesday May 12, 2009, 9:43 PM
HILLSIDE -- With no clear winner established in Tuesday's municipal election, Hillside's electorate will have to return to the voting booth in June to choose a mayor and new council members in a run-off.
In the unofficial results distributed by the township clerk, sitting councilman Jerome Jewell, Jr., received the most votes for the mayor's office. But to declare victory in Hillside elections, a candidate must receive votes from 50 percent of the voters plus one, and none of the candidates reached that threshold.
Joseph Menza, who owns a real-estate business in Hillside, was the next biggest vote-getter. Menza and Jewell will face off in the June 9 run-off election. In the last mayoral election, Menza was narrowly beat out by current mayor, Karen McCoy-Oliver, who did not run for reelection.
The same scenario rings true for candidates vying for the three at-large council seats in the township. The candidates running on Jewell's ticket, incumbent Frank Deo, Angela Garretson and President Carlisle Jr., received the highest number of votes, respectively.
Voters will choose between that slate and the ticket of candidates that ran with Menza: George L. Cook III, Jean M. Miller and Joseph Puglise.
The number of candidates running for office during this election split the vote and caused the need for a run-off election, said council president John Kulish in the clerk's office last night. A dozen at-large candidates ran for the three open seats on tickets with four mayoral candidates.
The candidates who receive the most votes during the June 9 run-off election will be declared the winner. Bates, who led a ticket with at-large candidates Sip T. Whitaker, Beverly Lynn and Leonard Dupree, and Andre Daniels, whose at-large candidates included Jeffrey Dykes, Sandra Cureton and Noemi Escobar, did not receive enough votes to run in the June election.
Run-off elections are not an anomaly in Hillside. The township had already budgeted for the June election, which will cost $45,000, said township clerk Janet Vlaisavljevic.
ELECTION RESULTS
ONE 4-YEAR MAYORAL TERM
Shelley-Ann Bates - 435
Andre Daniels - 214
Jerome Jewell 1,413
Joseph Menza - 1,165
No candidate won a majority of votes. Jewell and Menza will go to a run-off election on June 9.
THREE 4-YEAR AT-LARGE COUNCIL TERMS
President Carlisle Jr - 1,201
George L. Cook III - 1,017
Sandra Cureton - 294
Frank Deo* - 1,383
Leonard Dupree - 423
Jeffrey Dykes - 235
Noemi Escobar - 194
Angela Garretson - 1,307
Beverly Lynn - 503
Jean M. Miller - 936
Joseph Puglise - 1,004
Sip T. Whitaker - 459
No candidate won a majority of votes. The top six vote-getters will go to a run-off election on June 9.
Posted By: George Cook
Tuesday, May 19th 2009 at 9:09PM
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