For the first time since 2007, Hoboken voters this past Tuesday selected a split ticket of candidates for three contested seats on the Board of Education. Education for all Children candidate Peter Biancamano, an incumbent, was the highest individual vote-getter, followed by incumbent Monica Stromwall and political newcomer Sharyn Angley of the Parents for Progress slate. The latter slate was allied with Mayor Dawn Zimmer.
After months of sometimes contentious campaigning, the results of the 2014 election paint a familiar picture — a politically divided city in which most of the victories went to Zimmer’s candidates.
The results should strengthen the position of Kids First, the slate that currently holds a majority on the school board with six trustees. While Parents for Progress was not directly affiliated with Kids First, some Kids First members openly supported them.
The third incumbent in the race, 12-year board member Frances Rhodes-Kearns, often joined Biancamano in opposing Kids First actions but did not win re-election. She will replaced by Angley.
Still, Kids First cannot count on a supermajority on all issues. During the campaign, Stromwall and Angley spoke skeptically about some of Kids First’s most controversial decisions, including challenging the expansion of a Hoboken charter school in court and discontinuing annual referendums on the school budget.
As of Friday, Peter Biancamano had received 2,522 votes, followed by Stromwall with 2,240 and Angley with 2,180. Parents for Change candidate Brian Murray came in fourth with 2,097 votes. Provisional ballots remain forthcoming.
““I have an obligation to the students of Hoboken and their parents and all the taxpayers that put me there…”—Peter Biancamano
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Party time
On Tuesday night, Biancamano celebrated in front of Freeholder Anthony Romano’s social club on Washington Street. He thanked Romano, former school board member and Hoboken politico Frank Raia, and Council members Michael Russo and Theresa Castellano for their support.
Biancamano said re-election will allow him to continue his advocacy for Hoboken’s children and taxpayers. He said absolute power can cause even honest people to behave badly, and promised to continue questioning Kids First’s decisions where appropriate.
Meanwhile, Angley and Stromwall partied at an uptown bar with past and current Kids First members, Mayor Zimmer, and council members Peter Cunningham, Jim Doyle, and Jen Giattino.
Stromwall said she was thrilled that her hard work had proved to be valued by the voters, and said her best intentions were to make Hoboken public schools a great place.
“It was a very close race and all of the candidates put forth a tremendous effort,” said Angley in an email. “I look forward to joining the Board of Education and working as a team to make our schools the best that they can be.”
How did they win?
One of the key factors behind the success of Angley and Stromwall is the nature of the school board election itself, in which voters can vote for multiple candidates but are not allowed to rank them. Parents for Progress received the most total votes of any one slate, but only 39 percent of the total votes.
In fact, the opposition candidates received 10,278 total votes compared to Parents for Progress’ 6,500, but they were split between Parents for Change and Education for all Children.
The breakdown of votes by wards underscores the divided nature of Hoboken politics. Affluent uptown neighborhoods typified by new developments and brownstones went for Parents for Progress, while downtown neighborhoods dominated by born and raised Italians and residents of the Hoboken Housing Authority broke for the opposition slates.
Angley, who lives in the Hudson Tea building, carried the uptown Second and Fifth Wards, and Stromwall carried the Sixth Ward. Meanwhile, Biancamano won the most votes in the First and Third Wards, and Parents for Change candidate Patricia Waiters carried the Fourth Ward, home to most of Hoboken’s public housing projects.
Asked why his running mate Frances Rhodes-Kearns did not see the same success as him, Biancamano posited that she had been hampered by the ballot itself, which placed her at the end of the list of candidates.
Turnout was low across the board for a midterm election with no close state-wide races, and lower still for Board of Ed polling. As of Thursday, 16,802 total votes had been counted in the school board race, down from 21,897 in 2013 and 24,900 in 2012.
On Tuesday evening, Raia bemoaned the lack of interest in the school board race among the Hoboken electorate. He said the 2012 decision by the Kids First majority to move school board elections from April to November has caused the campaigns to be drowned out by big ticket races for the City Council, U.S. Congress, and President. Still, Raia said he thought a low turnout would be good for his candidates, Biancamano and Rhodes-Kearns.
Vote-by-mail ballot tallies did not emerge until early Wednesday morning. They did not alter who would win the election, but they did add 466 votes for Biancamano, making him the highest vote-getter, and 452 votes for Rhodes-Kearns, pushing her from seventh to sixth place. Murray had the next highest Vote-by-mail boost with 108 votes.
That result was no surprise to members of the Education for all Children camp, including Councilman Michael Russo, who predicted on Tuesday night that Biancamano would jump ahead after VBMs were counted.
Votes by mail questioned
Accusations of improprieties with regard to absentee ballots are a perennial issue on Hoboken elections, and this year was no exception. On Saturday, Nov. 1, Joseph Branco, the campaign manager for the Parents for Change slate, challenged 225 vote-by-mail ballots for alleged discrepancies.
According to Michael Harper, the clerk of the Hudson County Board of Elections, investigators from the office of the Hudson County Superintendent of Elections sought to speak with every voter behind the challenged ballots, but were not able to contact all of them.
On Election Day, said Harper, the four-member Board of Elections reviewed the ballots and decided to reject 55 of them. Harper said the Attorney General’s office has been informed of the challenged ballots, and that the election board would assist in any way if the Attorney General decides to pursue charges.
In 2011, Biancamano, Rhodes-Kearns and Carmelo Garcia were elected to the school board on a Raia-backed ticket that hired 97 Election Day workers, all but one of whom voted by mail. Each worker was paid $35 for their work.
On a state Election Law Enforcement Commission report received Oct. 27, the Biancamano/Rhodes-Kearns campaign disclosed a $5,000 contribution from Raia but no expenditures on campaign workers. However, a final report on contributions and expenditures must be filed by the slate within 20 days of Election Day.
Harper said that the Hudson County election board was concerned about allegations of organized abuse of the Vote-by-mail process in Hoboken, but that each ballot must be examined and considered individually. He said some of the allegations were based on perception alone, but that the Board could not allow voters to feel that their votes were not sacrosanct. “If money is changing hands,” said Harper, “it’s unconscionable and unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, Biancamano said he was deeply committed to making sure that voting was being done correctly, but remained concerned that challenges of legitimate ballots might suppress future turnout. According to Biancamano, many of the voters whose absentee ballots had been challenged were senior citizens who could not vote in any other way. He said he was concerned that seniors who had voted legitimately would be scared out of voting again after a visit by men with badges.
Biancamano on the rise
Some have speculated that Biancamano’s success in the 2014 school board election, combined with his backing by Raia and Romano and potential role as the sole dissenting voice on many school board issues, could augur a 2015 City Council run for the Second Ward, where he resides. Biancamano ran unsuccessfully for an at-large City Council seat last year on the ticket of Raia and Tim Occhipinti.
In an interview on Wednesday, Biancamano said he was planning to stay for a full school board term at this time. “I have an obligation to the students of Hoboken and their parents and all the taxpayers that put me there and I need to fulfill that obligation,” said Biancamano.
However, he did not definitively rule out a future City Council run, saying that “anything can happen.”
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.