Burrows Loses County Board to Walter
By Dan Murphy
Mayor Mike Spano, surrounded by family, friends and supporters and remembering his father, Len Spano, thanked the people of Yonkers on election night for voting for him in record numbers to serve a third term as Yonkers mayor. Spano got a record 75 percent of the vote, with republican Mario De Giorgio receiving 25 percent.
Spano spoke about how Yonkers has become a model for “the county, the state and the nation about how to work together and get things done.” He was permitted to run for a third term after the City Council extended term limits law to allow elected officials to serve 12 years.
City Councilman Mike Breen, a republican, also took advantage of the term limits change and was elected to a third term without opposition. Councilwoman Shanae Williams was also elected to her first full term, defeating Terrence Miller, who was running on the Working Families Party, line 90 to 10 percent.
Spano and the people of Yonkers also welcomed the newest member of the City Council, democrat Tasha Diaz, who was elected to the third district without opposition on Election Day. Spano thanked Councilman and Majority Leader Michael Sabatino for his eight years of service, who declined to run for a third term.
Spano’s broad themes, and his election night message of reaching across party lines and his accomplishments of Yonkers during his eight years in office, will only fuel speculation about any future plans for higher office that he may have. That will be a story in the weeks to come.
The big surprise on election night in Yonkers was the defeat of County Legislator Gordon Burrows, a republican who lost his bid for re-election to democrat Ruth Walter by a 51 to 49 percent margin.
Burrows, who served on the Yonkers City Council 12 years ago before joining the County Board, is well known in Yonkers and used to combine his name recognition with the large republican community in Bronxville to win re-election to the BOL five times.
And this year, Yonkers democrats were quietly trying to help Burrows serve one more term on the BOL. In the final days of the campaign, a story about Walter was leaked and published online, which democrats claim is “fake news.” We are still in the process of trying to find out its accuracy before printing it, but it shows the failed desperate attempts used at the end of this campaign.
One Yonkers democrat said: “Mayor Spano at the top of the ticket, getting 75 percent of the vote, helped Ruth Walter beat Gordon Burrows. You can’t overcome that kind of coat tails.”
Burrows’ loss also hurts republicans countywide. Across Westchester, democrats picked up another two seats on the County Board, with the victory of Walter against Burrows in the 15th district, and in northern Westchester in the first district, where democrat Colin Smith defeated republican Frank Catalina in the race to replace retiring republican County Legislator John Testa.
Democrats now hold a 15-2 majority on the County Board, with Conservative Legislator Margaret Cunzio and republican Legislator David Tubiolo the last two remaining non-democrats on the board. Both Cunzio in North Castle and Tubiolo in Yonkers ran without opposition.
The focus will return to Tubiolo, who is now the only republican on the County Board. His father, Justin Tubiolo, is chairman of the Yonkers Republican party, and speculation that Legislator Tubiolo will switch parties was squelched when his father told WVOX commentator Dennis Nardone that his son would never switch parties. That speculation will now continue, but in the end, it might be better for democrats if they have some type of opposition.
The two other county legislators from Yonkers, democrats Christopher Johnson and Jose Alvarado, were both elected without opposition; Johnson was re-elected, while Alvarado makes his return to the County Board.
The other “competitive” race in Yonkers was for City Court judge. Democrat Elena Goldberg-Velazquez defeated republican Richard Sweeney 67 to 33 percent. Congratulations to Goldberg-Velazquez for becoming the next judge on the Yonkers City Court, which will ensure that Yonkers will have a female judge.
In 2017, the “blue wave” of democratic, progressive support washed over Westchester and Yonkers. That blue wave continued in Yonkers in the election of 2019, and is the reason several young Yonkers republicans and conservatives – most notable Councilman John Rubbo – have switched parties and are now democrats.
