Republicans keep control of Town Council
NEW MILFORD — The Town Council will have a lot of familiar faces and experience following the results of Tuesday’s election.
All of the Republicans who won seats on the Town Council currently hold those seats with Democrat incumbent Walter Bayer also keeping his seat.
These seven members will be joined by Democrats David Lawson and Mary Jane Lundgren.
The Town Council races are all at large, which means the top nine candidates will serve.
Though there are two new faces on this council, the makeup remains the same at six Republicans and three Democrats. Republican Mayor Pete Bass was also reelected.
Democrat Lisa Hida led a writein campaign after she was left off the Democrats slate, but did not win enough votes to be reelected. Democrat Peter Mullen did not seek reelection.
Lundgren had served on the Town Council for years prior to the 2017 election, which she lost. During her tenure she was often a member of the minority party on Town Council.
Lawson comes to the Town Council after leading the Board of Education for a number of years.
Republicans were the top vote getters of the 15 candidates, with all six candidates receiving enough support to serve.
Katy Francis received the most with 4,319 votes, followed by Michael Nahom with 4,212 votes, Thomas Esposito with 4,184 votes, Chris Cosgrove with 4,141 votes, Michael Gold with
3,943 votes and Douglas Skelly with 3,926 votes. Bayer received the next highest number and led the Democrats with 3,320 votes, followed by Lawson with
3,184 and Lundgren with
3,097 votes.
The rest of the Democrats did not get enough votes to get on the board. Michele Shackelford led this with 3,007 votes, followed by Megan Byrd with 2,882 votes, Hilary Ram with 2,808 votes, Jeffrey Winter with 2,763 votes and Gale Alexander with 2,444 votes.
There were a total 1,028 writein votes for Town Council but it is still being determined how many of these were specifically for Hida.
All of these results are still unofficial and don’t factor in the absentee ballots or the votes cast as part of the same day registration.