Faye Storms finds out she won. (photo by Violet Snow)
The Democrats held their post-election party in a brightly lit art gallery and checked for returns on a laptop, while the Republicans met in a dimly lit bar and read a cell phone, but both parties had one thing in common: imp atience. The Ulster County Board of Elections website did not begin to release Shandaken results until well after the 9 p.m. close of the polls.
Vote counts from two of the town’s four districts went up on the website at 10:15 p.m., showing Democrats Tim Malloy and Faye Storms leading Republican councilman Jack Jordan and his running mate, Frank Stapleton, by a substantial margin. Results from the two remaining districts were posted about 20 minutes later.
“Is it real?” Storms asked several times, as fellow Democrats declared her a winner. Storms read a victory speech from notes, thanking a long list of people who had helped out with her campaign and quoting lines from writer Katherine Mansfield that had served as inspiration, beginning, “Risk! Risk anything!” No one seemed to know why Malloy was absent. But the next day, November 6, Malloy, who was the top vote-getter of the four board candidates, commented, “It’s a great feeling to know that the people of Shandaken have that much trust in me, and it makes me motivated to do the best job that I can do. I’m glad to see that I share the same vision of our town, and I’m looking forward to working with Supervisor Stanley, Faye, and the rest of the town board.”
At the Sportsman’s Bar, the Republican board candidates had cleared out by 10:45, when those cross-endorsed and unopposed went next door to Arts Upstairs to join the Democrats’ celebration. Dems were giddy over the reversal of the 2011 election, when the Republicans swept all but one town race.
Final unofficial results were 533 for Malloy, 479 for Storms, 372 for Jordan, and 310 for Stapleton.
Democratic assessor Peter DiModica retained his seat, prevailing over Republican Kenneth Herdman, 457 to 406.
Supervisor Rob Stanley and Highway Superintendent Eric Hofmeister, both cross-endorsed Republicans, ran unopposed, as did Town Justices Tom Crucet, a Republican and Democrat Michael Miranda.
Stanley said he looks forward to working with the new board members. “I had a good working relationship with Tim when he was on the board in the past. I’ve known Faye for years, and she’s been assisting us with flood mitigation efforts through SAFARI and the New York Rising committee that she’s on. I think we will have a well-working board regardless of the changes.”