WILDWOOD — WIldwood residents voted to recall Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. and Commissioner Bill Davenport according to unofficial election results.
Candidates Al Brannen and Ed Harshaw garnered the highest number of votes according to unofficial results.
Click here for latest election results courtesy of the Cape May County Clerk’s Office.
Voters came to the polls from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and were asked if they want to recall Troiano and Davenport. If they do, they can fill the two seats from a selection of six candidates: Troiano, Davenport, Al Brannen, Ed Harshaw, John Roat and Ernesto Salvatico.
“It was very emotional,” Brannen told the Herald over the phone. “It was the first election that I ran for and won. We had a lot of good people behind us.”
“The people have spoken,” Brannen added. He said that he, Harshaw and Commissioner Gary DeMarzo would not waste any time once they got started.
“We’re going to go in there running at 200 miles per hour,” he said, adding that the team had committed to hiring professionals to run the city.
According to the unofficial election numbers, residents voted 624 to 487 to recall Troiano, and 649 to 470 to recall Davenport.
Harshaw was the top vote getter with 600 votes. He ran a campaign with Brannen, who came in with 577 votes.
Troiano had 496 votes, Davenport had 553 votes, Salvatico had 45 votes and Roat had 42.
Diane Pannelli, a master election board worker who oversaw the one of the Wildwood polling places, said it seemed to her like it was a strong turnout, noting that there were over 200 voters at each of the three voting districts in the Holly Beach Fire Company.
“It was steady all night,” she told the Herald.
Pannelli, of Erma, is a 15-year veteran of elections in West Cape May. She also runs the non-profit St. Barnabus food pantry.
She reported that their were no major incidents at her polling place, but she was unaware of the numbers because she tries to remain as unbiased as possible during the elections she oversees.
City Clerk Chris Wood said the winner and official results would be announced on Dec. 14. Wood said the reason for the delay is to allow for the counting of all provisional ballots, which will be done at 3 p.m. on Dec. 11.
According to state law, the term of recalled officials will terminate upon the certification of the election results, which would be Dec. 14, and the winning candidates would be sworn in.
The road to the recall began in 2008 and was largely as a reaction to the city’s high property-tax rate, and on May 19 the recall committees submitted what they believed were more than enough signatures to warrant a recall election, 790 signatures for Davenport’s recall and 792 signatures for Troiano, but on June 3, City Clerk Christopher Wood, who also serves as the recall election official, found the petitions were void because they contained invalid signatures.
Wood had also told the recall committees they needed 615 signatures to move ahead with a recall, but he later learned that the number was actually 697, or 25 percent of the 2,788 voters registered at the time of the November 2007 general election.
The recall committee, represented by attorney Daniel Gallagher, challenged Wood’s findings and placed the matter in Superior Court Judge Raymond Batten’s hands.
Supporters and opponents argued the validity of the signatures, backed up by a week’s worth of testimony.
Batten determined a sufficient number of signatures have been collected and the recall moved forward.
Troiano and Davenport decided not to resign and campaigned to continue in their positions. The candidates included:
• Troiano, 58, is a lifelong city resident who works as a concrete and masonry contractor. He has served on the commission since 1999 and was named mayor in 2003.
• Davenport, 63, is also a lifelong resident and retired after serving as a captain with the city’s Fire Department. He was appointed to City Commission in 2006 to fill the seat of the late Commissioner Fred Wager and was elected in 2007.
• Brannen, 66, has been a city resident since 1963 and currently works part-time in food sales. Brannen is a former chairman of the city’s Planning Board, and he served as a member of the Greater Wildwoods Tourism Improvement and Development Authority for 10 years.
• Harshaw, 60, is another lifelong city resident and continues to work as a history teacher at the Cape May County Technical High School. Harshaw, who served on the city’s school board, ran unsuccessfully for a seat on City Commission in 2007.
• Roat, 64, moved to Wildwood three years ago after living in Wildwood Crest. Roat is re-tired but previously worked as a casino bartender and at Thompson Hardware in Wildwood Crest. He ran unsuccessful campaigns for a seat on the Wildwood Crest Borough Commis-sion in 1997 and 2001.
• Salvatico, 81, has lived in Wildwood for more than 20 years. He moved to the United States from Uruguay in 1964. Salvatico has run for a seat on the commission in previous elections, including the 2007 race, and previously ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Cape May County Board of Freeholders.
Avalon – Maybe deport them instead of destroying what was once a great city! This is ridiculous. New York City launched a pilot program to help migrants transition out of city shelters by providing them with…
