Kevin Gaughan is 0-for-2 in his quest to dissolve village governments.

Residents in the villages of Williamsville and Sloan went to the polls in record numbers Tuesday, voting overwhelmingly to kill efforts to end each municipality's incorporated status.

In Williamsville, residents voted 1,546 to 309 against dissolution, with 83 percent of voters saying no.

In Sloan, the dissolution proposal was also crushed, with 1,031 or 81 percent voting against dissolution and 236 in favor.

"Village residents have spoken decisively," said Chris Duquin, head of the Village of Williamsville Citizen Study Group, referring to the final tallies. "For all the problems Sloan has and for all the problems we have, with all the politicians, it wasn't about that. It was about community."

Turnout was high in both municipalities, with 58 percent of all Sloan voters and 50 percent of all Williamsville voters filling out ballots.

Over the past few months, many residents have expressed concerns about the lack of any concrete dissolution plan. The uncertainty about the continuation of village services and the impact on taxpayers' wallets left many determined to vote to keep what they have.

"This is a setback to our efforts to reduce government and save taxes, and I take full responsibility for that setback. This is my fault," Gaughan said. "I'm going to do better and work harder, and I'm not going to stop until we build a local government that boosts instead of burdens our community."

Nearly 100 onlookers packed the Williamsville Village Board's chambers as absentee ballots were fed into electronic polling machines after the polls closed at 9 p.m.

When the final tally was announced, the room erupted in cheers and applause.

Williamsville Mayor Mary Lowther said she wasn't surprised by the outcome, given the fact that state law requires villagers to vote on dissolution before any dissolution plan is presented.

"I hope the new law is amended to work better," she said of efforts to change the statute on village government dissolution.

In both Williamsville and Sloan, observers described the scene as busy all day Tuesday.

"It was a zoo," said Amy Alexander of the Friends of the Village of Williamsville, whose two dozen volunteers handed out yellow "NO" sheets to passing residents.

Gaughan received both handshakes and tongue lashings on his stops at both polling places, though he seemed energetic throughout the day.

One Williamsville resident gave him a shove, and a Sloan resident threw an object at him and missed.

The numerous "Vote NO to dissolution" signs posted at Williamsville Village Hall was an indicator of public sentiment. "Vote YES" signs were nowhere to be seen.

"It would be a travesty if this village were dissolved," said Pauline Dyson, 73. "The closer the government unit is to the people, the more responsive it is the people's wishes."

Lines stretched down the hall before polls opened at noon, with nearly 900 people casting their ballots in the first four hours, before the rush-hour traffic crowd arrived.

"I just don't think the savings are worth it," said Williamsville resident Andrea Richards, 38, who has lived in the village for 10 years.

David Pennington, 75, spent his afternoon ferrying elderly residents interested in the dissolution referendum to and from the Village Square Apartments in his 1995 Cadillac DeVille.

He said he is one of the few residents in the senior citizens apartment complex who has a car. Though he was against dissolution, he said, he wasn't telling anyone how to vote. A few, however, were happy to tell him.

"One woman said, 'I was born in the Village of Williamsville. I live in the Village of Williamsville, and I want to die in the Village of Williamsville,'" he said.

Several voters expressed distrust of town officials and of Gaughan. "He's a blowhard," said village committee member Al Hershberger. "He hasn't shown us anything. He just tells us what to do."

Not all voters were against, however.

"I hate the number of politicians that we have," said one resident, who added that she loves the village and would hate to give up sidewalk snowplowing but is concerned about the bigger picture.

She also said she was casting her vote for democracy even though she expected the dissolution vote to fail.

"It's like a token vote," she said. "I'm well aware of that."

The scene was similar at the polling site in Sloan.

"We work elections a lot," Elections Inspector Helen Derenda said. "There were a lot of people we've never seen before. They were all the way to the door. We couldn't take a lunch break."

Gaughan thanked voters as they left the polling place before laughing with a group of teenagers from John F. Kennedy High School who had come to heckle him. Gaughan eventually got them to join in a trivia game about American presidents and states.

Nicki Piechowiak was not one of the majority in Sloan. She said she has seen too much government countywide. She has attended Gaughan's meetings and can readily cite the statistics.

"Here in Sloan, we're about one square mile, and we have five elected officials," she said.

 "It doesn't make any sense. The services are all going to be the same. The people in Cheektowaga that I know, they all get their snow plowed, they all get their garbage taken care of. You have police and fire services. We were told that our parks would stay open."

As the polls closed, Gaughan stood with six other "Sloan Rangers" supporters of dissolution on one side of the room as a larger group of anti-dissolution residents gathered on the other side.

After the final count, cheers and shouts arose from the crowd, and one resident popped open a bottle of champagne.

After five successes last year in downsizing town boards, Gaughan had finally tasted defeated.

"Kevin Gaughan has met his Waterloo," said resident Tom Nowicki. "If he thought it was going to be close, Sloan just showed him. You can't have an outsider come in and mess with a way of life, a community."

After the champagne had been passed out, Mayor Leonard Szymanski sat at a folding table with Deputy Mayor James Niwinski discussing the results.

"It's a community of one square mile of people knowing each other," he said. "We know what we have, and the people don't want it to stop. I wanted to know the problems of the people that voted yes. They have beautiful homes. Everything is kept up."

Nowicki said he understands why some villages might be dissolved, but not Sloan.

"I think smaller villages are probably prone to be dissolved because of pure economics, but we're a village of 3,700 people. Sloan is a country community in the city. We can afford to keep Sloan," he said.

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