(Updated: 9:57 p.m. with final results.) Challengers knocked off candidates of the Democratic machine in several close races across town for the position of party ward co-chairman. Among the victors, by razor-thin margins, were two East Rock firefighters, Ray Saracco (pictured) and Kevin Donohue.
The party machine fell in four of seven races taking place citywide for the most local of political offices.
Party stalwart Rose Sorrentino lost a seat in Ward 11 after 28 years in office. Robert Lee beat the legendary vote-gatherer of the Bella Vista elderly housing complex on the east side of town. The race largely hinged on the issue of cornish hens. (Click here to read about that.)
Lee declared victory early — three hours before the polls closed and results were official. Click here to read the full story.
The results bore out Lee’s confidence. The tally (DePalma and Lee, pictured, were a team running against party-backed candidates):
Patty DePalma 152
Robert Lee 134
Rose Sorrentino 127
Adelaide DelFranco 115
The two firefighters challenging party-endorsed candidates won by just a handful of votes in East Rock’s Ward 10. The results:
Kevin Donohue: 195
Ray Saracco: 197
Sabrina Bruno 192
Debra Hauser 182
There were technically enough absentee ballots to change the verdict, but the firefighters kept their lead. Donohue and Saracco, who were born in the neighborhood, were backed by the fire union, Yale unions as well as by aldermen loyal to Hill Alderman Jorge Perez and critical of the city administration.
Westville Weighs In
The party machine worked hard, and got good news, in Westville’s Ward 25.
A spirited race there ended with incumbent Barbara Segaloff (pictured) holding onto her seat, and her running mate, Anthony Wallace, winning as well. They received 312 and 298 votes, respectively.
Their challengers, Tim Holahan and Mary Faulkner, captured 271 and 254, respectively.
Segaloff and Wallace were supported by the citywide Democratic machine. Holahan and Faulkner ran on a platform of opening up the ward committee to more people and increasing democracy and accountability. Veteran party vote-pullers Brian McGrath and Norma Rodriguez-Reyes were out early at Edgewood School Tuesday trying to help beat back the populist challenge.
Click here for a previous story about the races citywide.
Each ward has two Democratic co-chairs. They decide who gets to sit on ward committees and make endorsements for offices like alderman and mayor.
A 12-Year-Old Campaign Manager
In Ward 30, which includes both the West Rock and West Hills neighborhoods, Michelle Edmonds-Sepulveda lost her co-chair seat. According to the machine vote, Honda Smith won 116 votes to hold onto her seat. Virlinda Billups, who works with Smith on a group called West Rock Concerned Citizens, took 81 votes, enabling her to replace Edmonds-Sepulveda, who got 68 votes.
The isolated West Rock neighborhood made the difference. Edmonds-Sepulveda received all but eight of her votes from the other side of the ward, the West Hills neighborhood.
Edmonds-Sepulveda is also the ward’s alderwoman. The two victors, who are critical of the Democratic Party establishment and City Hall, signaled they would not nominate Edmonds-Sepulveda, a City Hall loyalist, for reelection as alderwoman next year.
Smith’s campaign was run by her 12-year-old son William, because Smith’s foot was in a cast; she had surgery on the foot last month.
But Smith, not her son, was on hand at the polls to receive the polls. William was at home listening to the results by speaker phone. “He has to go to school tomorrow,” Smith explained. (Smith is pictured on the phone, Billups to the right.)
In Ward 22, the Dixwell neighborhood, Cordelia Thorpe, an administration critic, lost on the machines, but won the race by crushing the party establishment on absentee ballots.
The final tally: Thorpe, 87; Gina Phillips 62; Levone Gilbert II, 54. Thorpe collected 38 out of a total 45 absentee ballots.
The machine lost Ward 12 (Bishop Woods), too. A young city staffer and holdover from DeStefano’s governor’s bid, Becky Bombero, was working hard to help machine-endorsed Lynda McMillen and her running-mate, Anna Simeone (an incumbent). The race appeared to be neck-and-neck all day.
Critics of the administration such as Jackie James showed up at the polls on behalf of their opponents, incumbent Tina Jendrzewski and George F. Page Sr. (they’re pictured above). The area’s alderman, administration critic Gerald Antunes, gave the pair his support, too. Jendrzewski and Page pulled off a win with 117 and 119 respectively. The mayor-backed team finished with McMillan at 97 votes and Simeone at 105 votes.
In Ward 14, incumbent Rafael Ramos won definitively, with 192 votes. Incumbent Joan Forte took 163, Nelson Cruz 134. Forte had lost on the machines, but kept her spot with a second-place finish through absentee ballots.
A voting sticker fell on Rose Sorrentino’s shoe.
Melissa Bailey, Paul Bass, and Vincent Vitkowsky reported this story.