Town election Tuesday offers five contests, including school and finance boards

Written by Macklin Reid, Press Staff
Monday, 02 November 2009 05:56

Heated school and finance board races top a ballot with five contests in this week’s municipal election.

Twenty-nine candidates are running for town offices, 17 of them in the five contested races.

“It’s an opportunity for you to choose the people who handle the issues that affect everyday life,” said First Selectman Rudy Marconi, who isn’t on the ballot in a year with no selectmen’s races.

Voting is Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the three regular district polling stations:

• District I, the south, at East Ridge Middle School;
• District II, the north, at Scotts Ridge Middle School;
• District III, central, at Yanity Gymnasium.

People who’ll be out of town election day may cast absentee ballots at town hall from 8:30 to 4:30 today (Monday).

A week before the election, the registrars of voters said there were 16,107 Ridgefielders eligible to cast ballots — 5,888 (37%) Republicans, 4,572 (28%) Democrats, 5,552 (34%) unaffiliated, and 95 (0.6%) members of smaller parties.

There are contests for finance board, four-year and two-year school board seats, Police Commission, and a two-year vacancy on the Zoning Board of Appeals.

The election will again use the optical scan ballots on which voters color in ovals just above the names of the candidates they want to support.

“It’s a double-sided ballot,” Republican Registrar of Voters Hope Wise said.

Of the five contested races, three are on one side of the ballot, and two are on the other side. Including unopposed candidates, there are elections for 12 different boards and commission on the ballot.

Write-in votes

One of the contests — the finance board race — has a write-in candidate, Heidi Namiot, whose name does not appear on the ballot.

She is officially registered as a candidate running against two Republicans, incumbent Marty Heiser and Jill Bornstein, whose names do appear on the ballot. Ms. Namiot has the backing of the local Democratic Party.

Each voter may cast ballots for two finance candidates, and two of the three will be elected.

To cast a ballot for Ms. Namiot, voters must do two things, according to the registrars.

They need to indicate they are writing in a choice by filling in one the optical scan ovals under finance board at either 1D or 2D — the first two columns on the far left of the ballot, at the bottom on the line labeled “write in votes” below the Republican, Democratic and Independent party lines.

They also need to write her name — “Heidi Namiot” — below the oval in the 1D or 2D box on the ballot.

“You physically must write in her name,” said Democratic Registrar Cindy Bruno.

Even if it’s misspelled, the name will count as long as election officials can determine who the voter intended to vote for, the registrars say.

Ballots with a name written in that do not have ovals filled in on the “write-in votes” line, however, will not get counted. The optical scan machine uses those ovals to divert ballots with write-ins into a separate bin so they can hand-counted — if no oval is filled in, the ballot will scoot through the auto scan with the rest of the ballots and no one will look at it to see the name and count the write-in vote.

“Each poll will have a team to check the write-in ballots and count the write-in ballots,” Ms. Wise said.

Write-in votes for people not officially registered as write-in candidates do not get counted.

Minority representation

Of the five contests, only the two school board races — four-year and two-year — are affected by the state’s minority representation law, which often makes things complicated.

The law limits how many seats any single party may hold on various boards and commissions, with the number varying according to the size of the agency.

On the nine-member school board, any one political party may hold no more than six seats.

The board has eight four-year seats and one two-year seat. This year the two-year and four of the four-year seats are up for election.

Six candidates, three from each party, are competing for the four four-year seats — Republicans John Palermo, Russell Katz and Keith Miller, and Democrats Nina Mohadjer, Amy Shinohara and Irene Burgess.

In a separate contest, two candidates — incumbent Republican Sandi Rose and Democrat Charles Primerano — are going head to head for the lone two-year seat.

Voters may choose four candidates for four-year seats and one for the two-year position — a total of five.

And five candidates will be elected.

Among the four board members not up for re-election, just holding onto their seats, there’s a split — two Republicans and two Democrats. Given that, the minority representation law’s limit of six means neither party can elect more than four candidates and each party is guaranteed of electing at least one.

In the Police Commission race three Republican incumbents — Susan Craig, Carl Lecher and Tom Reynolds — are seeking re-election, and Democrat Joseph Adams, a former commissioner who was on the board in 1990s, is attempting to return to the board.

Voters may choose three of the four.

Minority representation law doesn’t affect the Police Commission race this year. The law allows the five-member commission to have up to four members from the same party. The two commissioners not up for re-election are one Republican and one Democrat, so neither party would exceed the four-of-five rule, regardless of who the election’s three winners are.

The Zoning Board of Appeals contest is for a two-year vacancy, and pits Republican Duane Barney, who has filled the seat for about a year, against Democrat Sky Cole.

Among the uncontested races on the ballot are elections for five Planning and Zoning Commission seats, two positions on the board of Assessment Appeals, two five-year Zoning Board of Appeals seats, and three zoning appeals alternate terms.

Tuesday’s is the town’s the first municipal election without selectmen’s races, since a charter change that went into effect two years ago gave selectmen four-year terms.

“I just hope people vote,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said Tuesday.

“I was talking to two seniors today who both said they aren’t interested in voting this year at all.”

He said that participation in the national election was about 80% and the numbers for the local election will likely be much lower.

“You’d think it would be the exact opposite,” he said.

“Please vote and get involved,” Mr. Marconi said. “Take part in the town’s future.”