Democratic Incumbents Victorious in White Plains
As Democratic candidate for Westchester County Executive, Noam Bramson, surprised everyone by conceding to incumbent Robert Astorino at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night with only 25 percent of the vote in (Astorino was leading 24,230 to Bramson’s 20,445), a shout went out at the White Plains Democratic City Committee gathering at Vintage Restaurant that “no one was conceding here.”
At 54 percent of the White Plains tallies in, with a rather big turn out at the polls, it was announced that Mayor Thomas Roach had held his seat with a 78 percent victory over Republican challenger Cass V. Cibelli.
Accepting the victory, Mayor Roach expressed his thanks to the people of White Plains. “This is a great city, a unique city. The people who live here love it, he said. “They care about White Plains. It is the people’s passion for White Plains that pushed us through the line.”
Upon coming into office Roach explained that he had decided to do what he felt was right and it appeared by this election that the people had agreed with him.
Acknowledging that his three Democratic colleagues on the Common Council, Beth Smayda, John Kirkpatrick and John Martin had also won their elections (each with 22 percent of the vote at the time of recording), Roach said it was important to have the Council back because there is much work to do.
The Common Council campaign, at times focused on issues in single neighborhoods with Democratic registered residents saying they would vote Republican if the Democratic incumbents did not assure them how they would vote on land use issues, most notably Gedney Farms, which has been entrenched in a battle to try to stop the French American School of New York (FASNY) from getting a special permit to run a regional school in their neighborhood.
The winning candidates agreed that it had been work and a good team that got the votes out. Councilman John Martin summed it up saying: “The people of White Plains have spoken loud and clear.”
The Republican candidates AnneMarie Encarnacao, Claudia Murphy and Carl J. Albanese earned 11 percent, 13 percent and 10 percent of the vote respectively.
In the County Legislature District 5 race, White Plains Councilman Benjamin Boykin, a Democrat, pulled ahead of Miriam Levitt Flisser who ran on the Republican and Conservative party tickets, and maintained his lead at 60 percent to 40 percent at the time of reporting.
Boykin said he would work hard to reinstate childcare payments back to their 15 percent level during the next County budget season and would work on environmental and transportation issues. He thanked the current District 5 Legislator, William Ryan for his help on understanding the issues and said he was eager to continue serving the people of White Plains in this new capacity.
