DEMS BIG NIGHT
Hamilton Council Democrats sweep in big defeat for Yaede’s team of candidates >>
HAMILTON » Democrats have seized majority control of the Hamilton Township Council in a historic vote Tuesday.
The Democratic trio of Jeff Martin, Rick Tighe and Anthony Carabelli Jr. won seats on the five-member governing body, denying Republican Council President Dennis Pone a fourth term and unseating appointed Councilwoman Dina Thornton, according to unofficial election results.
The results amounted to a major shakeup of local government and a stinging defeat for Hamilton’s GOP Mayor Kelly Yaede, who tried to carry the Republican council candidates to victory under the Team Yaede umbrella.
The Republican council candidates of Pone, Thornton and Gino Melone campaigned on a promise to preserve Hamilton’s status of having the lowest property taxes in Mercer County, but the voters decided they wanted change and divided government.
When the Democrats are sworn in to a four-year term on Jan. 1, 2018, Yaede will be forced to work with them in a bipartisan fashion to advance her agenda of moving Hamilton forward while stabilizing the municipal tax rate.
“The mayor is definitely in trouble,” former Hamilton Democratic councilman Vinnie Capodanno said Tuesday night after the election results were announced. “She could not get her candidates in. She’s in trouble.”
Carabelli, whose namesake father formerly served as a longtime Mercer County freeholder, is the business advocate for the Mercer County Office of Economic Development and Sustainability. He secured victory Tuesday as the top-vote-getter, collecting 12,480 votes, according to the unofficial ballot count with 100 percent of precincts reporting.
Martin, an attorney who previously served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, collected 11,402 votes in his winning effort and Tighe grabbed 11,047 votes in his successful election run, beating the Republican candidates by hundreds of votes, according to the unofficial election results as reported by the Mercer County Clerk’s Office.
Democrats once controlled Hamilton Township municipal government at the turn of the century, but the tide turned in 2005 when Pone first won election to town council. After going more than a decade of being in political obscurity, Hamilton Democrats have surged back into relevance with Tuesday’s election outcome.
“We believe Hamilton needs a change in the way its government serves its citizens and we are bringing a positive change to Hamilton,” Councilmen-elect Martin, Tighe and Carabelli said in a statement posted on their Facebook campaign page.