City Council President Lakisha Collins-Bellamy submitted more than 3,000 signatures to the Board of Elections
By Dan Murphy
In one of the busiest election seasons in Yonkers on record, seven candidates for Yonkers City Council President have filed petitions with the Westchester Board of Elections, seeking to be on the ballot for their respective party primaries in June.
Leading the pack is the current Council President, democrat Lakisha Collins-Bellamy, who submitted over 3,000 petitions. One thousand valid signatures are required to get on the ballot for CCP, and the submission of 2,000 signatures is considered to be safe to avoid getting knocked off the ballot.
Two former democratic City Council Presidents also filed their petitions. Mike Khader submitted over 2,500 signatures, while Chuck Lesnick submitted over 2,300 signatures.
Councilwoman Tasha Diaz, who is also running for City Council President, and Peter Spano, also submitted petitions, but we do not know how many at this time.
It is interesting to note that registered Yonkers Democrats are only allowed to sign one of these five petitions submitted for council president. If a Democrat signed for more than one candidate, the earliest dated signature is valid.
On the republican side of the aisle, Dean Politopoulos and Ron Schutte have also submitted their petitions to the BOE. “The petition period is officially over, and we are proud to announce that we submitted over a whopping 200% of our goal for both Republican and Conservative signatures,” said Politopoulos.
Next week, we will delve into the races for City Council and County Legislators and see if anyone is challenging some of the candidates’ petitions and signatures.
Thanks to Delfim Heusler, Yonkers Insider, for helping me keep track of the petitions and signatures (www.facebook.com/groups/244486586248971).
