Old habits die hard, and so last night I couldn’t resist the urge to go watch the votes be counted at the Wadsworth Library. I was surprised and honored to learn that I was one of ten people to receive a write-in vote for the library board. (No, it wasn’t me!)
That left me just 368 votes behind Kathleen Houston who led all 7 candidates with 369 votes. Other notables receiving one write-in each were Buzzo and Hop Sing. That’s pretty rarified air!
In the main event, both the propositions to convert to a school library district and adopt a first-year budget of $237K passed comfortably, getting about 70 per cent approval. The total of almost 500 votes cast was surprisingly large for a generally miserable rainy day.
Political pundits suggest that this may foretell a large turn-out in the upcoming town elections, but I have my doubts. Four years ago, exactly 2,000 people vote in the Kennison-Gallivan race. Despite nine candidates and all the hoopla, I would be surprised to see that number increase by more than 15 per cent. What do you think?
You will get your chance to predict the outcome of both races in the Great Geneseo Election Contest sponsored by the Geneseo Store. The person who correctly predicts the order of finish of all 9 candidates in both races will get a $100 gift certificate.
Entry forms can be found in this week’s LC News, but the ballots must be cast in the store, with a limit of one entry per person. For a tiebreaker, you will also need to predict the percentage of the vote garnered by the winning supervisor candidate to the nearest 1/10 of one percent.
The reason I have a scoop on this story is that Genesee Graphics was retained to design the ad. I pointed out to owner Neal Moynihan that the entry forms would probably be the best available poll on this race, but he has pledged to keep all entries confidential and not tabulate them until after the election.
Don’t forget that tonight is the Wadsworth lecture by civil rights leader Julian Bond. It will be at 8 pm at Wadsworth Auditorium with a reception to follow at Hartford House. In the interest of fairness, I hereby invite any candidate that wishes, to come by the house. I have nothing to do with the invitations for that, so I have no idea who has or hasn’t been invited.
Again, this is intended to be a non-political evening and I promise that my opening remarks at the lecture will be short and non-partisan. Hope to see you there!
