NORTH BERGEN – Mayor Nicholas Sacco and his team won all five seats in North Bergen’s municipal election for commissioner. In unofficial results posted Tuesday night, Sacco won 8,465 votes.
In North Bergen’s form of government, voters pick five part-time commissioners who choose a mayor from among themselves.
Sacco’s running mates – current Commissioners Hugo Cabrera, Frank Gargiulo, and Allen Pascual, along with new Commissioner Julio Marenco, formerly the president of the Board of Education – each won more than 8,000 votes. The team as a whole received about 64 percent of the votes tallied.
Sacco was challenged in a viciously contentious race by Larry Wainstein and his Lower Taxes Vote for Change ticket. Wainstein received 4,904 votes. His running mates each won between 4,399 and 4,502 votes, for a total of about 35 percent of the total votes cast.
The last few weeks before the election were particularly nasty, with accusations and allegations flying back and forth between the two camps. By some accounts, supporters of the bitter rivals literally came to blows on several occasions.
Also running for commissioner as a solo candidate was Henry Marrero, who took 589 votes, or a little under 1 percent of the votes cast.
Sacco’s team celebrated their victory on Tuesday night at 90 Park Restaurant, at an affair attended by a cross-section of high-powered local and regional politicians, including Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, County Executive Tom DeGise, Assemblywoman Angelica Jimenez, Hudson County Sheriff Frank X. Schillari, Union City Mayor Brian Stack, Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner, and many others.
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