In a surprisingly tight race, Guttenberg Councilman David Delle Donna earned the township’s Democratic nomination for mayor, defeating closest rival Tom Rizzi by a total of 57 votes Tuesday. Delle Donna will face Republican James Geron for mayor in November.
Not including absentee ballots, which are scheduled to be counted sometime this weekend, Delle Donna gained the nomination with 602 votes, compared to 545 for Rizzi and 439 for fellow candidate Ramon de la Cruz.
All three of Delle Donna’s running mates, namely Councilmen Javier Inclan and John Schwartz, along with newcomer Gerald Drascheff, also won their respective party nominations.
Schwartz received the highest vote total with 665 votes, with Inclan receiving 658 votes and Drascheff getting 651.
Rizzi’s ticket of council candidates all fell short, with totals of Leonard Litoff (533), Isora Bosch (559) and Ivan Dominguez (568).
Delle Donna and his ticket will now face Republican candidate James Geron in the general election in November. Geron and his Republican ticket, council nominees Joann Delgado, Jose Reguiro and Joseph Aponte, will face Delle Donna’s ticket in November.
Geron also ran for the Republican nomination for State Senator in the 32nd District on Bob Franks’ ticket, but was defeated by Bret Schundler candidate Nancy Gaynor.
Delle Donna said that he was expecting a close result.
“We knew we were in a very tight race and knew it was going to be close,” said Delle Donna, an air conditioning/refrigeration supervisor who has been a councilman in town for the last 18 months. “The last couple of nights prior to Election Day, we were out working the streets and knew that a lot of people had their minds made up to support us. I was pretty confident we could win, but I didn’t think it was going to be as close as it was.”
Because of the closeness of the result, the Rizzi camp will more than likely either contest the election’s result in court, or to have a total recount of the results.
“I fully well expect them to contest the election,” Delle Donna said. “It’s their right to do so. They always feel like they’ve been cheated out of something.”
Delle Donna said that he was disappointed with the last few days of the campaign, alleging that opponent Rizzi “flooded the streets with fliers filled with lies,” about Delle Donna and his running mates.
“These trash fliers were filled with nothing but trash about me, total lies,” Delle Donna said. “I was disgusted by them all. They were accusing me of everything under the sun and over the last few days, they went over the deep end. They were able to make outrageous allegations. I’m glad that the majority of voters were able to see through it.”
Rizzi claimed that many residents of Guttenberg’s Fifth District did not receive their copies of The North Bergen Reporter last Sunday – the issue that featured the mayoral forum, highlighting questions and answers from all three mayoral candidates.
“I think that would have been a little hard to do,” Delle Donna said. “Does he [Rizzi] actually think we went around and collected all the newspapers? I find that absurd. Does he think that one guy looked better than the other in the article? I don’t know. I thought the article was very fair.”
Rizzi did not return phone calls by press time.
On Tuesday, Rizzi’s attorney, Robert Mayerovic of North Bergen, unsuccessfully went to state Superior Court in Jersey City to try to force the town to halt street paving work in the Fourth and Fifth election districts, with the idea that the paving would make it tougher for residents to get to the polls. The Superior Court did not recognize the attempt by Mayerovic.
While Delle Donna tried to seek unity with fellow Democratic opponent de la Cruz, the political rift between himself and Rizzi was too wide for repair.
“I thought Ramon did a good job and ran a clean campaign,” Delle Donna said. “He was a big factor in the election. Give him credit. A lot of people expected him to fold after he lost his ticket, but he convinced a lot of people that he was a good candidate. He was the unknown candidate and did well. I’ve already reached out and contacted him.”
Added Delle Donna, “As far as my other opponent, there’s little chance of reaching out. I hope that all Democrats rally together to get Jim McGreevey elected governor, but it would be very hard for me to recognize Mr. Rizzi. He was once a close friend of mine and to conduct himself in that matter made a lot of people in this town disgusted. It would be very tough for me to forget that. A lot of people used to think highly of him. The last week was icing on the cake.”
Although Delle Donna has to be considered the strong favorite to become the next mayor of Guttenberg in November, he’s not taking anything for granted.
“We haven’t won anything yet,” Delle Donna said. “We will run an above-board campaign and we expect to get the message out to the voters. I expect to win in November, but I don’t take anyone lightly. We still have to work very hard.”