Somerville election results

[ron_newman]

Mostly incumbents won: Ward 6 alderman Rebekah Gewirtz, Ward 5 School Committee member Mark Niedergang, and all four Aldermen-at-Large. Gewirtz and Niedergang won by huge margins. At-large challenger Luis Morales made a good try, but he was unable to overcome the overall boringness of this election.

One non-boring election result: challenger Christine Rafal beat incumbent James Norton (editor of the Somerville News) for the Ward 4 School Committee seat.

Unofficial results, on the city website

Comments

Ward 4

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

Congrats to Christine – she earned a hard-fought race. I wish her the best of luck and I am sure she will do a tremendous job.

Jamie Norton

Re: Ward 4

[ron_newman]

And I hope that no matter who is on the School Committee, the Brown School will remain open.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I'm shocked Jamie Norton lost this one. After all, the Somerville News endorsed him! :-)

Re: Ward 4

[ron_newman]

That was gracious and graceful. This was neither.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Sorry, "this" what? The SN article Tom Nash wrote?

Re: Ward 4

[ron_newman]

Specifically pargraphs 2 and 3 of what I linked to. I don't know who Tom Nash is and don't see any reference to him there.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Oh... Rather cryptic, with all the "Farm Team" references (which I don't quite get anyway)... Most people would not get it right away...

Re: Ward 4

[ron_newman]

'Farm Team' refers to the fact that Somerville Journal reporters often don't stick around for more than a year or two, moving on to larger publications that pay better.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Somebody seems very bitter... I mean, joking and teasing is one thing, but that seems like somebody who has a personal grudge or something...

Re: Ward 4

[tomnash.livejournal.com]

Hello Nvidia, As a huge DSLJ fan, long have I dreaded your uttering my name on this forum. Just wanted to make clear that I don't write NewsTalk or conspire with the Talkers because I'm an objective observer.

As NewsTalk pointed out a few weeks ago, I'm their new assistant editor. I've been living in Somerville for a little more than a year and have been writing for them for the same amount of time. I have nothing to do with any of the political battles beyond reporting on them. Fairly. I don't even have a car to be ticketed.

So the real point here is continue bashing on NewsTalk all you want, but please don't drag me into it. After more than a year of lurking if I had anything to say re: Farm Teams or troglodytes or push polling or not posting poll results or false alarms on the Green Line I would have said it. Maybe now that can change. I have your snark version of a News poll on my fridge, btw.

Thanks

Tom

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Tom, I think there is a misunderstanding here, since I found out your name only yesterday. When Jamie provided the link above, I was not sure what parts of the page he was referring to. I clicked on the title and there was your SN article, but the article did not seem to contain anything offensive (which is why I was puzzled). Then, Jamie, pointed out the user comments on the page he had linked.

Re: Ward 4

[ron_newman]

Jamie didn't post a link. I posted a link. And the link that I posted was to the NewsTalk column, not to anything that Tom Nash wrote.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, Ron, that's right...

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

On top of the page you posted there is a link to Tom's article, which I clicked on!

Re: Ward 4

[tomnash.livejournal.com]

Right, I'm just trying to make this extra clear because of Nvidia's initial confusion. That's all.

Re: Ward 4

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the confusion...

[turil.livejournal.com]

Hey, next time there is an election for mayor, someone please run against Joe... So at least we have some sense of pressure on him to pay attention to the public, rather than thinking that he can do whatever he wants because he got 80% of the vote. Please? Maybe some young political science major from Tufts or something, just for the sake of experience, and to add some young new blood to counteract the entrenched old boy network of Somerville?

(Livejournal is being all time wonky again. This post didn't show up for me until just now, which is why I posted mine, which I deleted. Silly LJ!)

[ron_newman]

I agree -- uncontested elections like this one are not good for democracy.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

I agree. No one ran against Sean O'Donovan in Ward 5.

I think Ron should run

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Seriously.

Re: I think Ron should run

[ron_newman]

I don't live in Ward 5 and don't want to move. Sorry folks.

Re: I think Ron should run

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I meant as Mayoral candidate.

[djdreilinger.livejournal.com]

The lack of action did allow me to describe the scene at the Dante Club (http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2009/11/post_7.html). Which hopefully gives readers some idea of the political scene.

Also, hi Tom—good to meet you.

[ron_newman]

'Bill (The Professor) White' ?

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

IIRC he had two challengers in the last election, and beat them overwhelmingly.