Mayor Anthony Staffieri swept easily into a third two-year term, beating Democratic challenger Daniel P. Foley Jr. 1,766 to 1,354, according to unofficial numbers Tuesday.
NOTE: Amended Derby results released Wednesday morning.
Voting was conducted in three wards, with one ward split between two schools.
Numbers began arriving by cell phone at about 8:15 p.m., with Staffieri showing strong leads in each district.
Any thought that he might not take the victory quickly dissipated.
The mayor climbed onto a folding chair and addressed a packed headquarters crowd of about 100 people at the former Lifetouch building on Main Street.
“First of all to the volunteers, to the guys that worked so hard putting everything together, this is the final result of everybody’s hard work,” Staffieri said.
Then he brought the crowd, already on its feet, into shouts and applause with:
“It’s not about I, it’s about we,” he said. “It wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t stick together.”
Foley, a retired city educator and ex-football player, accepted defeat while campaign workers were still tallying the votes.
“I see a lot of long faces,” Foley said. “We ran a good campaign. We didn’t win, but we did the best we could.”
Despite the loss, Foley said he wouldn’t have done a thing different in his campaign.
“Dan ran an extra clean campaign,” said Sam Rizzitelli, chairman of the Derby Democratic Town Committee. “With a low voter turnout, things just went their [the Republicans] way.”
Republican Alderman Ken Hughes, also re-elected, said he is also looking forward to two more years of progress.
While an educator in town for many years, Foley had never before sought a political office. He wasn’t about to let his loss sour his demeanor publicly. He wished Staffieri the best and vowed that he would stay involved in town politics.
As Foley prepared to leave the building he said, “I’m the only one smiling, because I ran the campaign I wanted to.”
