STAFFIERI WINS THIRD TERM IN DERBY

Communities

Twitter

ValleyIndy - about 9 hours, 21 minutes ago.

@realandrewfro not sure if we will be there. Check town website to see what they last talked about

ValleyIndy - about 13 hours, 32 minutes ago.

See ya Monday and thanks for reading! Most popular this week were: 5. Guest column: Cinnamon Challenge is... http://t.co/bFKJMtR2

ValleyIndy - about 13 hours, 42 minutes ago.

Mayor, Alderman question auditor about school's $212,000 reserve fund. http://t.co/0EJS1KQ3

We Read…

Government

Community

Fire Departments

School Districts

by Joseph Cole and Tony Spinelli | Nov 3, 2009 11:15 pm

(3) Comments | Commenting has expired | Send link to a friend | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Derby, Election 2009

Derby —

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.”

Photo: Joseph Cole 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.”

Derby Amended Results

Comments

posted by: mataman117 on November 4, 2009 3:29pm

How can you say Staffieri “won big??” He won by 400 votes. Yes,it’s a win, but it certainly isn’t an very impressive one!!

posted by: Eugene Driscoll on November 4, 2009 4:27pm

You make a valid point.

Thinking out loud here:

Headline written in the rush of election night coverage and results.
“GOP Wins Big” would have been better, based on the results received when the article was posted.

But, a clerical error on the city side revealed this morning that the local Dems increased their representation on the Board of Aldermen by one seat.

Changing headline to “Staffieri Wins Third Term”

posted by: Art Stone on November 5, 2009 11:40am

According to the Secretary of State, as of October 2008, the active voter registration counts for Derby were:

Republican: 949
Democratic: 2,933
Unaffiliated: 3,032

so for the Republican to win by 400 votes is a “big” deal.

1,766 vs 1,354 is 56% vs 44%..

In 2008, Barack Obama was given a “mandate for change” nationally with a 53% to 46% victory

Valley Independent Sentinel