Jaskiewicz retains seat on Montville council after recount
Newcomer Rogers will fill out new GOP majority
Montville — The makeup of the Town Council was finalized Thursday with a recount that confirmed former mayor and three- term council member Joe Jaskiewicz narrowly won one of two seats held by the Democratic minority Tuesday, and retired state trooper Jeff Rogers will take the fifth Republican seat as a member of the new Republican majority.
The recount, completed in Montville’s Town Hall Thursday afternoon by election officials over several hours, finalized the results of an upset of decades of Democratic rule on the Town Council, Montville’s legislative body.
Rogers won a seat as the sixth- highest vote- getter overall with 1,508 votes. Jaskiewicz won fewer votes than two other Republicans — town gadfly and former Independence for Montville chairman James Andriote and Raymond Library board member Ray Coggeshall — but will hold his seat on the council for a fourth term with 1,463 votes because of state laws about minority party representation.
The party in the majority on a seven- member board may not hold more than five seats.
Incumbent Republicans Kathleen Pollard and Joseph Rogulski, members of the minority party for the last two years, were swept back into office with two of the top three highest vote totals in the Town Council election.
But at their first meeting Monday, they’ll be joined by a group including two Re-
publicans — Republican Town Committee chairman and former town councilman Tom McNally and Wills Pike — who have been consistent voices in town for nearly a decade. The other winner, Rogers, vowed to run for office last year to “drain the swamp” and address what he called corruption in town politics.
The now Republican- led council will have to elect a chairperson on Monday, likely ejecting Jaskiewicz from the post he’s held for six years.
Tuesday’s election ejected two Democrats, Tim May and Chuck Longton, who had both served multiple terms on the council. Both men received fewer votes than Denise Gladue, who had never run for elected office in Montville and was a virtual unknown in the race.