Will Wadsworth cruised to victory in the Geneseo supervisor’s race with 35.7 per cent of the vote in a four-way race. Incumbent Wes Kennison came in second with 25.7 per cent on the Conservative and Common Sense lines. Democrat Bob Wilcox finished third with 21. 8 per cent of the vote, with Corrin Strong garnering 16.8 per cent on the independent Geneseo First line.
In the five-way Town Board race the two incumbents were re-elected with David Dwyer leading the ticket with 1,344 votes. Hop Manapol running on the Conservative and Common Sense lines defeated Republican Patti Lavigne for the second seat, 954-808. Democrats John Zmich and Sally Wood finished with 741 and 583, respectively.
A total of 2,316 votes were cast in the supervisor’s race, an increase of about 15 per cent over the total cast four years ago. The overall turn-out town-wide was about 44 per cent, but that was reduced by lackluster SUNY Geneseo student voting which was not a significant factor in the outcome.
In District 2, which is primarily college students, the turn-out was just 17.4 per cent. Wilcox won that district with 60 votes versus 45 for Wadsworth, 37 for Kennison and 27 for Strong. In contrast, the three districts outside the village had a turnout near 60 per cent. Those districts provided a healthy margin for the winners, while the Democrats did poorly outside the village, where Wilcox ran in fourth place.
In other election news, Board of Supervisor’s Chairman Jim Merrick of Groveland, a Republican, fought off a challenge by Democrat Ron Niedermaier. In Lima, the two Republican candidates who were also on the independent Lima Citizens party line, Kathy Gardner and Dan Marcellus both won. They had been active in the successful effort to stop a proposed Super Wal-Mart last year.
The Clarion News Blog 