Legislature downsizing gains approval with 83% of vote in Niagara
LOCKPORT — Niagara County voters decided Tuesday to reduce the size of the County Legislature, and they placed the redistricting process in the hands of the Republican Party.
A proposition to cut the Legislature from 19 seats to 15, effective with the 2011 election, passed overwhelmingly, with 83 percent of voters in favor.
And the Republicans, with help from adherents in other parties, maintained their 14-5 advantage over the Democrats in the legislative body.
That means that when the new district boundaries are chosen in the spring of 2011, the map will be drawn to suit the GOP.
“I expected this referendum would pass, based on feedback I received from my constituents,” said Legislature Majority Leader Richard E. Updegrove, RLockport.
He said the main reason for placing the proposition on the ballot was to give taxpayers a chance to make “major structural change” in county government.
It was a good night for the GOP in most of Niagara County.
In North Tonawanda, Republican challenger Robert G. Ortt, the city’s clerk/treasurer, upset Democrat incumbent Lawrence V. Soos, and the GOP also swept the city’s four Common Council races.
In Lewiston, Steven L. Reiter, a Republican who runs the town’s Highway Department, pulled out a decisive victory for supervisor against incumbent Democrat Fred M. Newlin II.
And a Wheatfield election that turned ugly in the final few days led to a sound victory for former Town Justice Robert B. Cliffe, who defeated incumbent Timothy E. Demler in the Republican primary in September. Demler waged a fierce write-in campaign but still fell about 1,000 votes short of Cliffe, while Democrat Sam Conti Jr. lost to Cliffe by about 600 votes.
Democrats did beat back GOP challengers to hold all three seats up for grabs on the Niagara Falls City Council and Pendleton Supervisor James A. Riester, a Democrat, also won re-election.
“Tonight, voters across North Tonawanda made a choice, we made a choice for a different path,” Ortt said in his victory speech in the Fairways at Deerwood restaurant. “. . . Tonight, with an overwhelming voice, the people of North Tonawanda said they not only deserve better, they demand better.”
Soos, who is finishing his first term as the city’s chief executive, called his opponent’s campaign “all smoke and mirrors.”
“The people have spoken,” Soos said, “and if that’s what they want, then God bless them.
“I am totally amazed,” Soos continued. “I thought I was doing a good job. Rob had nothing to offer.”
The 66-year-old city native and former bar owner served as a alderman-at-large from 2002 through 2005.
The Republicans kept their strength in the County Legislature by winning a Niagara Falls seat that had been in Democratic hands for decades, while voters elsewhere in the city were turning out an incumbent who had caucused with the GOP despite his Democratic registration.
Vincent M. Sandonato, a 23- year-old legal assistant, won the 5th District in LaSalle for the Republicans. He defeated 24- year-old Nicholas A. Melson, legislative director for Democratic Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte.
The LaSalle seat had been held for 24 years by Democrat Sean J. O’Connor, who is retiring, and before that by his father, Lloyd O’Connor.
But the 1st District along the lower Niagara River went for an organization Democrat, Niagara Falls High School social studies teacher Richard A. Marasco.
Marasco defeated Jason J. Murgia, a registered Democrat who voted with the GOP.
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