All incumbents staying put except one

[elements.livejournal.com]

The Journal and the News are both reporting on their websites that Mayor Curtatone and all the incumbent aldermen were re-elected today. All the (unopposed) school committee candidates were elected/re-elected as well, except for the Ward 4 incumbent, Charlene Harris, who didn't get on the ballot and ran a contested write-in campaign. The new Ward 4 school committee rep is James Norton.

Word also is that Tony Lafuente, who narrowly came in 5th in the alderman-at-large race, is asking for a recount. Depending on the source Tony was either 12 or 21 votes behind Bruce Desmond, who took the 4th place in at-large (the top 4 at-large vote-getters are elected).

Comments

[cos]

... but they're not reporting how close (or not) ward 7 was. That's the one with Rachel Heller running against incumbent Bob Trane. I'm sad to hear she didn't win, but I'd love to know how strong a challenge she was able to make...

[elements.livejournal.com]

Me too, I'd love to see how well she and Joe Lynch did in their challenges - hopefully will encourage them or others to repeat the challenge in another 2 years.

[lena-a-mermaid.livejournal.com]

Neither did so well. I don't think the results will encourage people to repeat the challenge.

[ron_newman]

I'm surprised; I expected Lynch-O'Donovan to be a cliffhanger.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I saw a Somerville Journal article say Joe Lynch lost by 600 votes, but it didn't say how many votes were cast total.

[ron_newman]

Unofficial results from the city website. Also, Precinct-by-precinct results.

Re: Joe Lynch lost by 600 votes

[fefie.livejournal.com]

This is sad. With the Mayor and several of his employees campaigning hard for O'Donovan in the last few weeks, Lynch's loss is not a total surprise as he was a first-time candidate. In Ward 5 we get to put up with do-nothing-until-next-election O'Donovan for 2 more years.

Re: Joe Lynch lost by 600 votes

[ron_newman]

I am not surprised that Lynch lost, but I'm very surprised by the margin.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Here ya go: http://blogs.townonline.com/somerville/?p=21891
Upshot, 992 to 705.

There's a bunch of other articles with other numbers there, though I wouldn't be surprised if they change a bit more before finalizing; the articles that came out overnight don't entirely agree.

[elements.livejournal.com]

For repelling a first-time challenger, that actually isn't a very large margin of defeat (compare for example to Rebekah's numbers in defeating her challenger, or Sean O'Donovan's in defeating his). I'm not unbiased, but to me it looks like Trane has less strong a hold on his seat than the other incumbent Ward aldermen.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Not sure about the whole ward, but precinct two, where I was a poll worker last night, was about 360 Trane 220 Heller, if I remember correctly. This is Trane's home precinct, so I imagine he did somewhat better than in the other two.

Heller

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

I was on the fence in picking between Heller and Trane (Heller seemed smart and passionate; Trane has always been super responsive to my emails and worked hard to fix things I care about) but then I received the two bright orange fliers sent out by Heller's campaign in the last days. They said some nasty things about Trane, and it pissed me off that (a) Heller stooped to that level in an alderman's race, and (b) the timing of the fliers was clearly intended to make it impossible for Trane to respond to her allegations. I'd asked Heller in person to differentiate herself from Bob a week or two ago, and she didn't mention any of the things she alleged in her orange fliers. That's lame, and she lost my vote, and my wife's vote, and the vote of at least one other person I know of because of that flier.

Re: Heller

[ron_newman]

What did the flier say? I keep hearing about it on other blogs, but nobody has yet said what she accused him of.

Re: Heller

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Essentially, she implied that he is the hand maiden of developers and that he had acted unethically in approving or supporting projects as a result of receiving campaign support from developers and having once worked for a real estate company that has had business in the city. I don't have the fliers anymore, so I can't report on exactly what they said, but the tone was sleezy and I think it was telling that the "brought to you by the Heller campaign" blurb was in about 6 point font. If Trane has acted unethically, fine, I want to hear about it, but she should have told me that when I asked her in person to draw a comparison.

Re: Heller

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I too was on the fence about Trane/Heller. I'm a newcomer to Ward 7 after having spent a few years in Ward 2, but I ultimately could see no reason not to return Trane to office. He had been more than responsive in the limited interaction I had with him.

I liked that Heller personally asked for my vote, and I was excited by her plan to utilize the web to keep her constituents in the loop. Ultimately, I too was put off by the last minute move to negative campaigning.

It's funny because it was Heller's people that actually swung by my place at 6:30 last night reminding me to get out and vote. Aparently they had me down as a supporter. One of her people swung by my condo 2 days after we moved in and asked if I supported some completely non controversial positions Rachel did (positions I know Bob also supports). I said of course I did, and they said, "Great! Glad to have your support!" I just wanted her off my porch so I went along...

Re: Heller

[gruene.livejournal.com]

"I ultimately could see no reason not to return Trane to office"

I take the opposite attitude when I'm on the fence. If there's no strong reason to reelect an incumbent, and the challenger seems a reasonable alternative, I'd rather throw the bums out.

Re: Heller

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

For someone excited about utilizing the web to benefit her constituents she sure didn't do a good job utilizing it to mobilize support. I emailed her once, and though she did reply (and quite satisfactorily), her response took nearly two weeks to arrive. Also I was surprised I never got an email from her campaign reminding me to vote.

I never heard anything from Trane until the night before the election when I noticed a flier someone stuck in my door.

Re: Heller

[gruene.livejournal.com]

I don't see anything wrong with a "negative" campaign, so long as you're upfront about it. A perfectly valid campaign message is, "Here's why I will do a good job and here's we the incumbent isn't doing a good job." In fact, as a challenger, it's probably good to explain why you think your opponent deserves to lose his seat. The main problem with what Heller did was the timing: The last minute fliers with the "paid for by" line in 2 point font smacked of desperation and came and at a time when anyone who hadn't made up their mind already would be turned off by it.

Re: Heller

[ron_newman]

I hope that whoever said they'd post the flier will do so soon. Did it say "Vote for Heller" anywhere on it (other than in that 2-point type)?

Re: Heller

[gruene.livejournal.com]

No, Heller was not mentioned as an alternative.

Re: Heller

[ron_newman]

Then I'd have to agree that it's a poor leaflet. A good leaflet should always explicitly ask for your vote.

[ece-drihten.livejournal.com]

Trane took 7 with nearly 300 votes.