26 Percent of Port Chester Voters Went to Polls

When all the numbers were counted after Tuesday's village election in Port Chester, unofficial tallies show that little over 26 percent of the voters turned out for the election that decided the entire seven-member village board.

In the race for mayor, in which Democratic incumbent Dennis Pilla was defeated by Republican Neil Pagano, statistics from the Port Chester Village Clerk's Office show that more than 200 people did not cast a ballot in the mayor's race.

The mayor's race was decided by a 238-vote margin, with Pagano winning 1,585 with the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines to 1,347 votes for Pilla on the Democratic line.

At noon today, Village Clerk Janusz R. Richards said 24 affidavit ballots received at the polling places during the March 19 election will be opened and inspected at Village Hall. 

Janusz said a total of 3,141 voters took part in the village election. He said there were 12,002 voters eligible to take part in the election.

In addition to deciding the mayoral race, the election also decide who will take the six trustee seats on the village Board of Trustees. Incumbent Democrats Luis Marino and Daniel Brakewood were re-elected, along with Conservative Saverio Terenzi and Republican Joseph Kenner. Trustee Bart Didden fell just 31 votes behind Kenner and was ousted from the board, according to the unofficial tallies.

Two new trustees were elected: Democrat Greg Adams, a former trustee, and independent Gene Ceccarelli.

Pilla said he congratulates Pagano for his win and sees the results of the mayoral race as a sign that village voters wanted a change of leadership in the village.

"I'm at peace with the results of the election," Pilla said on Wednesday. "It's a tough thing to get a fourth term. I think that worked against me psychologically with some of the voters - the idea of it being a fourth term."

Pilla also sees the overall election as sign of support for Port Chester Democrats, with the re-election of Brakewood and Marino and the election of Adams — along with the election of Ceccarelli. Democrats believe that with Ceccarelli's support, they will have an easier time getting their initiatives passed.

"We had a good day at the races," Pilla said. "We accomplished our goals. Our objective was to get non-partisian people elected."

However, Pilla said he was surprised that the apparent discrenpancy in the number of voters who took part in the mayoral balloting. While some voters may have intentionally failed to vote for either candidate, Pilla believes there may have been confusion among some voters because of the village's cumulative voting system in the race for the six trustees.

"I definitely think there was some confusion," Pilla said. "There were people who thought they only had six votes."

Pilla contents that because of the cumulative voting system, trustee candidates focused on that part of the voting in their campaign efforts. In Port Chester, voters can cast their six trustee ballots in any way they want - even giving all six votes to one candidate if that's what they want to do.

However, voters could cast just one ballot in the mayor's race, which was set off in a smaller, separate box on the Port Chester election ballot.

While the there were 209 voters who did not take part in the balloting for mayor, Pilla said he understands those votes would not have changed the outcome of the election. But he believes the race between him and Pagano, a real estate broker who is chairman of the Port Chester Industrial Development Agency, was closer than the 238 margin from the unofficial tally.

Pagano and the members of the new Board of Trustees are set to be sworn in on April 2.