White, Cruz, and Elliott win School Board seats

The fight for three seats on the Rochester School Board did, as expected, come down to three candidates: incumbents Van Henri White and Cynthia Elliott, and newcomer Jose Cruz.
All three are winners tonight.
While there were no upsets, getting to tonight's election has been a strange series of twists and turns.
Even though three seats were available, it looks like Board Vice President White's was never in jeopardy. White was able to keep his seat with minimal support from the Democratic Party. He's not a protégé of Assembly member David Gantt, and he did not receive an endorsement from Mayor Bob Duffy.
Yet, White has shown that he gets parents talking and engaged. His win is less of a surprise and more of an indicator.
The same can't be said of Elliott. She managed to come out of the Democratic convention with the half-baked support of the party. Elliott is a polarizing figure, and questions about how she was nominated followed her through the campaign. And her recent cursing moment caught on video caused a fury. If voters were upset, they were left with few 11th-hour options.
Voters have sent Cruz to the Board for the first time. His win increases the Latino voice on the board. Cruz and White led in the percentage of votes they received in unofficial counts from the Monroe County Board of Elections. Elliott may have lost votes to Howard Eagle, who ran on the Working Families ballot.  

GOP holds on to the County Lej

For Democrats, this was supposed to be the year they regained control of the County Legislature, and they hoped to make some gains in the suburbs. Instead, they saw some high-profile losses in the towns and didn't pick up any seats in the Legislature.

One of the biggest upsets happened in Irondequoit, where Democratic Supervisor Mary Ellen Heyman was defeated by Republican challenger Mary Joyce Daurizio, who received 54.1 percent of the vote. Democrats also lost two seats on the Town Board - Republican challengers Paul Marasco and Deborah Essley beat Democratic incumbents Gail Bello and Debbie Evans. Those are tough losses, given that Democrats have a solid enrollment edge in the town.

In the midst of a police department scandal, Greece's supervisor election between incumbent John Auberger and opponent Dan Maloney is too close to call.

In Mendon, Democratic Supervisor Ian McNabb lost to Republican challenger John Moffitt, who got 57 percent of the vote. That caps six years of Democratic control of that office. Mendon voters will see a familiar Democrat returning to elected office - former Supervisor Moe Bickweat prevailed in his Town Board bid, as did Republican Karla Boyce, a former county legislator. Democrats in Mendon will retain their majority on the Town Board.

In the Lej, Republicans held all of their seats. The Democrats came closest in the Henrietta-based 13th District, where Mike Condello got 45.4 percent of the vote to John Howland's 54.6 percent. The next closest was the Greece-based 7th District where Republican Rick Antelli received 58.1 percent of the vote to Democrat Mark Coon's 41.9 percent. [As an aside, in one of the less traditional contests, Democrat Saul Maneiro bested Working Families Party candidate Michael Patterson with 88.2 percent of the vote.]

It's tough to say what this all means. It could mean that the Republicans' message that they've held the county tax rate flat resonated with voters. It could be the much-ballyhooed Obama backlash. It could just be turnout. Many of the Legislature campaigns and contests were, after all, relatively quiet. And it appears the Robutrad scandal had little effect on the county elections.

No surprises in City Council race

The makeup of City Council was set after the September primary, when voters elected newcomers Jackie Ortiz, Loretta Scott, and Matt Haag to Council, to join returning incumbents Dana Miller and Carolee Conklin. The five will serve At-Large.

The only other name on the ballot tonight was Harry Davis, who had the endorsement of the Working Families Party. Davis, who was also encouraging people to write him in as mayor, never made it out of single digits, however.

Incumbents Gladys Santiago and John Lightfoot lost out in the primary, although Lightfoot said he was staying in the race as a write-in candidate. He seems to have put little effort into that campaign, however. The results of his write-in effort are not known at this time.

Santiago is Council president. It seems likely that her replacement in that position would be one of the Council veterans: Miller, Conklin, Adam McFadden, Lovely Warren, Carla Palumbo, or Elaine Spaull. Of the six, Miller, Warren, Palumbo, and Spaull seem the most likely contenders.