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Column: Greenwich’s Quirky Elections Laws: Time for a Change?

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By Edward Dadakis

Voters have spoken, giving Peter Tesei a resounding victory and an historic fifth term as Greenwich’s chief executive.  Only John Margenot has served as long.  Tesei is young, and with such strong voter support could win again in two years, if he chooses to run, making him Greenwich’s longest serving first selectman.

Tesei’s astonishing 75 percent victory margin was his best showing yet. This is unusual, as a chief executive’s popularity tends to decline over time. But clearly not Tesei’s.

His Democrat opponent, Frank Farricker, was not only trounced, but he received the fewest votes of any major party first selectman candidate in Greenwich history. Democrats failed to find anyone willing to engage Tesei, perhaps because they considered it a fools errand, so Farricker deserves credit for stepping up. He was endorsed unanimously by the same Democratic Town Committee, which barely gave him a second term as chairman last year.

Overall, the campaign was a quiet one. Tesei presented his credentials as a steady leader and responsible fiscal steward. The voters responded.

Farricker, strangely, argued that he would control costs of capitol projects. Yet his fellow Democrats, especially on the Board of Estimate and Taxation, regularly push for higher and higher spending on capital projects.

Farricker’s approach ran counter to that of his own running mate, Drew Marzullo. During the campaign, Marzullo insisted that the New Lebanon building committee not even consider cost savings options to the school construction they are overseeing.

Ultimately, Farricker and Marzullo both lost. Since Marzullo didn’t lose as badly as Farricker, he retains his Board of Selectman seat.

Concluding his strange campaign, Farricker refused to offer the traditional call of concession and congratulations to his opponent. Instead, Greenwich Patch reported, when asked if he had called Tesei to concede Farricker responded, “I don’t call Peter. I have nothing to say…” That gives you a measure of the man.

In the Board of Education race, both parties nominated three candidates, perhaps responding to the community push earlier in the year for competitive elections.

On the Republican side, newcomer Lauren Rabin and incumbent Barbara O’Neil were elected. Peter von Braun, running for a second term, failed to get a seat.

Democrat Jennifer Dayton, trailing von Braun by almost 1,900 votes, secured re-election, and newcomer Gaetane Francis also won. Democrat Anthony Lopez failed, but in contrast to von Braun, was the lowest BOE vote getter overall.

I can’t imagine von Braun is happy, since he outpolled, by a large margin, all three Democrats. This is exactly what happened two years earlier, when Republican Brian Peldunas beat every single Democrat yet was denied a seat. Something is wrong with a system that lets candidates be seated at the cost of someone who gets more votes.

Board of Estimate and Taxation Republicans trounced their Democrat opponents by wide margins, securing the chairmanship and maintaining the crucial tie-breaking vote. The Democrat showing was dismal, as the lowest Republican vote getter received 1,000 more votes then the highest polling Democrat.

Voters should be asking why Democrats get half the BET and Board of Education seats despite performing poorly at the polls. Is it right that Greenwich’s quirky election laws gift Democrats with more power then they would ever achieve by appealing to the electorate? That is not the way it works in the state legislature; why should it be so in Greenwich? Perhaps it’s time for a change.

Greenwich Republicans should enjoy their electoral triumph, but most know it will be short-lived: the hard work for them to prevail in the 2016 election is already beginning.

Edward Dadakis, a lifelong Greenwich resident, was first elected to the RTM as one of its youngest members. He is a former chairman of the Greenwich Republican Party and currently represents our 36th Senatorial District on the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee.

 

 

 

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