MIDDLETOWN — Every time there’s an upset in the National Football League, the phrase “on Sunday” is uttered.
The same can be said of recent Middletown City Council and school board races. Just change Sunday to Tuesday.
How else can you explain what happened at the polling place on November 7th?
Middletown voters backed one of the City Council candidates who lost badly two years ago, and the school board’s top vote-getter did not attend any of the three candidate forums and has limited campaign funds. Please consider that he was an unknown candidate with no qualifications.
Of the six Congressional candidates on the ballot, Steve West II received the most votes with 3,791 votes, followed by Jennifer Berg-Carter (3,733 votes), Clayton Castle (2,851 votes), He was followed by John Ferrand (2,845 votes) and Jeffrey Wellbaum (2,384 votes). Christy Asbury (209).
Just two years ago, Berg-Carter was a distant fourth in a five-person race for two City Council seats. Rodney Muterspau (3,394) and Zach Ferrell (2,248) were selected, followed by Joe Mulligan (1,982), Berg-Carter (1,032) and Julia Lewis-Smith (818).
So in two years, Berg-Carter went from 11% to 23% of the vote.
Berg-Carter said she decided to seek a seat on the City Council while serving as an ambassador for Middletown Connect, a concerned citizens group. After she took a bus with others through certain areas of the city, she learned that there were “a lot of things we need to work on together.”
Some say Berg-Carter, like other statewide female candidates, benefited from Issue 1 because she attracted more female voters. She also had huge support in the highly visible black community, people said.
Using the same logic, school board competitions make even less sense.
Vallena Stewart, a Black woman who was applying for a term that expired after Michelle Novak resigned, finished fourth in a five-person race for three positions on the school board. Stewart is known for her extensive volunteer work and her work as executive director of Robert “Sonny” Hill’s Center for Community Building Institute in Middletown. Well known in the community.
Holly Snow was the top vote-getter, beating out the school board president and vice president, although the amount spent on campaigning is unclear, according to the general financial report.
“I’m just as shocked as everyone,” Snow said last week when asked about receiving the most votes against a more well-known candidate. “It threw me for a loop.”
She said she either couldn’t attend or didn’t know about the three candidate forums. Her entire campaign included her 50 yard sign. That’s because that’s all she bought and that’s what she posted on Facebook.
Snow, a mother of seven children, all students in the Middletown area, received 4,470 votes, followed by Vice President Anita Scheibert (4,256 votes), Board President Chris Urso (4,319 votes) and Stewart. (4,020 votes) followed by Charles Coakley (2,818 votes).
Snow said he would be a “100 transparency” school board member.
She’s going to do more than sit behind a table at twice-monthly meetings, she promised.
“I want to be active,” she said.
That means she might show up to a meeting in casual clothes.
“I’m a mother first,” she said. “I’m just a mother, another parent.”