Talk about your grass roots campaign efforts. David Delle Donna stood in front of his impromptu campaign headquarters, namely his garage, Tuesday night awaiting the results of the Guttenberg municipal election.
"It’s where it all begins, right here in my garage," said Delle Donna, who has served as a township councilman for the last two years. "I may have had a campaign office [on Broadway], but this is where everything begins and ends. It makes things easier here. It’s more down-to-earth."
So that’s where Delle Donna stood with many family members, friends and political supporters as the results from the election came from Town Hall just a few blocks away.
Runningmate Javier Inclan, who has also served with Delle Donna on the council, shouted out numbers from his cell phone. Delle Donna’s wife, Anna, came running up 69th Street with her own share of numbers.
Every tabulation was coming up in a positive way. Delle Donna was on his way to becoming Guttenberg’s next mayor.
When the smoke cleared and the final votes were tallied, the 43-year-old construction engineer and father of two had been elected mayor by a resounding 2 to 1 margin.
"I’ve been waiting a long time for this, some 10 years," Delle Donna said after the results were official. "This has been 10 long years in the making. And this is definitely the culmination, the fruit of those 10 years of hard work."
Delle Donna won all six of Guttenberg’s voting districts, collecting 1,339 votes in total. Challenger James Geron, a Republican, garnered 766 votes.
All three of Delle Donna’s council candidates, namely incumbent councilmen Inclan and John Schwartz, as well as newcomer Gerald Drasheff, were also elected, defeating the three members of Geron’s ticket.
Schwartz (1,337) received the highest vote total among the council candidates, with Drasheff (1,319) and Inclan (1,308) right behind, defeating Geron’s candidates, Johanna Delgado (718), Joseph Aponte (700) and Jose Regueiro (686).
Delle Donna said that he awoke Tuesday morning at 4 a.m., anxious about how the day was going to unfold.
"I was very nervous all day," Delle Donna said. "But once we saw the people coming out of the polling places and I got a feel of how they voted, I started to feel better. Everyone was very upbeat and excited all day. I had a lot of good workers. I couldn’t ask for better help than I received today."
Delle Donna believed that he was helped by a stellar turnout, which saw more than 2,100 of the town’s 2,800 registered voters go to the voting booths.
"A month or so ago, I didn’t think people were interested in the election," said Delle Donna. "They were more concerned with their lives. They had their minds on more important things. But in the last week or so, people were starting to talk about the election. Obviously, enough people were interested to come out to vote."
Part of what spurred the turnout was the hotly-contested gubernatorial race. When the votes were tallied, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey soundly beat former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler.
Delle Donna said that he was glad to have carried all six of the township’s voting districts, including some where he thought he might have some difficulty.
"You never know what’s going to happen," he said.
Delle Donna was also bolstered by a late show of support from outgoing Mayor Robert Sabello, whose name appeared on a letter endorsing Delle Donna that was handed out to approximately 3,000 residents on Sunday.
In the past, Sabello had expressed his displeasure with Delle Donna and actually supported Thomas Rizzi, a staunch opponent of Delle Donna, in the Democratic primary last June.
"I had a few key conversations with Bob," Delle Donna said. "He’s been a very good friend to me and always will be. I hope I can have half of the accomplishments that he has had over the years. It meant a lot to me that Bob and I made peace. Our differences had nothing to do with politics."
Delle Donna, who will officially be sworn into office on Jan. 1, vowed that he will remain on a crusade to keep a stabilized budget, to work on the town’s quality of life, to try to curb overcrowding in the schools and mass development and to address the town’s parking problems.
"As long as we keep a control on our spending, we should be okay," Delle Donna said. "We’re still paying bills now from two years ago from the previous administration that had a credit card mentality. Any budget that I’m in charge of will be stabilized. I wish I could say that there won’t be an increase in taxes, but there probably will be."
The township is currently saddled with a $1.4 million deficit.
"Of course, this is a team win, and I’m happy that the entire council will now be in support of me," Delle Donna said. "And we pushed as hard to get McGreevey, [Albio] Sires and [State Sen. Bernard] Kenny elected as well. We wanted to have the entire team win and we did."
Inclan believed that the positive results were because of the support of the man who headed the ticket.
"I think this was a vote for Dave Delle Donna," Inclan said. "This was a vote from the bottom up instead of top to bottom. Our voters were confident that Dave could do the job. We had some people against us in the primary, so this was the same kind of fight, but with different results."