Siegel Defeats Diana to Win Seat on Yorktown Town Board
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Democrat Susan Siegel defeated Republican Donna Diana in a special election Tuesday for a vacant seat on the Yorktown Town Board.
According to unofficial results from the Westchester County Board of Elections, Siegel, a former supervisor and councilwoman, received 1,867 votes to 1,814 for Diana, who is the widow of former Supervisor Thomas Diana.
(In early voting, Siegel held a 1,095 to 1,001 vote edge over Diana.)
Siegel said Tuesday night Yorktown Republican Committee Chairman Kevin Byrnes called her to concede the race and offer congratulations.
“I thank all my supporters and everyone who voted for me,” Siegel said. “I’m looking forward to getting to work.”
Siegel, 84, will serve the remainder of an unexpired three-and-a-half-year term. She was town supervisor for two years in 2010 and 2011 and a councilwoman for about a year that ended in 2015. She has been a government watchdog and fixture at town meetings for years.
“The difference in our qualifications was very stark,” Siegel said before and after her victory. “After all these years in Yorktown many people knew me and recognized my name.”
Diana, 60, was running for elected office for the first time. Besides giving her “a purpose,” Diana said one of the main reasons she was running was to ensure certain things her husband was passionate about didn’t fall by the wayside.
The empty seat on the Town Board was created when Ed Lachterman was elected supervisor in April in a special election. Lachterman had been re-elected to a four-year term last November as a councilman running on the same ticket as Thomas Diana. Diana died unexpectedly in early January, just a few days after being sworn in as supervisor.
The Yorktown Town Board’s next scheduled meeting is Aug. 8, which likely will be Siegel’s first meeting back on the board.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
