In an interview with the Daily Press held late last afternoon, Mayor Phil Brock said he still wasn’t sure what the results of the local election would be. But after yesterday’s updated vote totals, there are only about 3,500 votes left and Brock trails Natalya Zernitskaya by 1,124 votes. He would need roughly 70% of the outstanding votes to stage a stunning comeback.
In short, you don’t want to say it’s over until the last ballots are counted, but we’ve fallen into “well, you never know” territory here.
This means that as of December, the City Council will all be relative newcomers. Under the current rules passed in 2022, the new mayor will be Lana Negrete who was first appointed to the Council in June of 2021 to fill an open seat and won re-election the following year. Negrete will also be the senior member of the council, just three and a half years experience.
Negrete has been a part of a coalition that had a majority of the Council, but now is the council’s most conservative member with the four “United Democratic Slate” members (Ellis Raskin, Dan Hall, Barry Snell and Zernitskaya) joining Jesse Zwick and Caroline Torosis as six progressive members of the city council.
In the race for three seats on the School Board, Jennifer Smith, Jon Kean and Maria Leon-Vazquez will hold on to their seats. Christine Falaguerra, who was on the ballot but didn’t actually campaign was a distant fourth.
There are no races for College or Rent Control boards due to a lack of challengers.
