Hillsdale Democrats Declare Victory, One Seat Too Close to Call

Hillsdale Democrats likely took most or all of the four seats up for election on the borough council Tuesday, but at least one of the races was too close to call based on unofficial results.

Republican incumbents Marie Hanlon, Anthony DeRosa, Frank Pizzella and John MacEwen, Democrat challengers Larry Meyerson, Jason DeGise, Tom Kelley and Chris Looes and independent candidate Jim Moldow were seeking the four available seats.

The four seats included two three-year terms, one two-year unexpired term and one one-year unexpired term.

The preliminary totals, which include votes cast in borough polling locations but not mail-in or provisional ballots, have Meyerson with 2,178 votes, DeGise with 2,176 votes, Hanlon with 2,127 votes, DeRosa with 2,011 votes and Moldow with 611 votes for the two three-year terms.

For the two-year term, Kelley had 2,344 votes and Pizzella had 2,135.

For the one-year term, Looes has 2,359 and MacEwen had 2,095.

Borough Clerk Susan Witkowski noted that the results were not yet official. Because of damage and power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy, there may be a higher-than-usual number of mail-in and provisional ballots, which could sway the final results.

Most of the Republican candidates visited the Democrats Tuesday night to congratulate them.

Meyerson, Kelley, DeGise and Looes all told Patch they hoped to improve morale among the borough's residents, employees and volunteers.

"The voice of the residents has been ignored for too long," Kelley said.

The candidates said they were preparing to focus on Hillsdale's budget for next year and hoped to find ways to maintain services and increase revenue without increasing taxes.

"We have a fiscal crisis," Meyerson said. "That's our focus. We need to be creative to raise more revenue."

5,038 voters turned out for the election this year (not including mail-in and provisional ballots), compared to 5,854 for the last presidential election in 2008 and 2,748 for last year's general election. There were also 417 of mail-in ballots and 18 provisional ballots cast in 2008, compared to 136 mail-in and five provisional ballots cast last year. For the previous presidential election, 82 percent of registered voters in Hillsdale voted.

The total number of mail-in and provisional ballots for this year's election were not yet available Tuesday night.

Have a question or news tip? Contact editor Jim Leggate at Jim.Leggate@patch.com, or find us on Facebook and Twitter. For news straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.