By:KEITH GRANT
New faces produced a familiar result for the Long Beach Democratic Club as it appeared to sweep all three City Council seats up for grabs Tuesday night in one of the city's most hotly contested races in years.
Incumbent Denis Kelly was the night's top vote-getter, with newcomers Lenny Remo and Dan Kearney taking the next two spots.
Republicans, however, were not yet conceding Kearney's seat after changing vote totals on Wednesday. Though they were not planning to challenge any results, they were holding off an official concession until the Nassau Board of Elections certified the election.
Figures released Wednesday morning by the BOE had Republican Jim Hennessy easily defeating Kearney, and falling just 35 votes shy of Remo for the second-place spot. The top two vote-getters earn four-year terms, while the third-place candidate goes on the ballot again in two years.
But Democrats disputed those numbers, claiming totals counted by the Long Beach Police Department had a Democrat sweep. Board of Elections officials said a mistake on their end was possible and were preparing to re-canvas the voting machines over the next few weeks.
However, by Wednesday afternoon, the BOE confirmed numbers nearly identical to those released by Long Beach officials. The newly released count showed Kelly (4,736 votes), Remo (4,525) and Kearney (4,496) the winners over Hennessy (4,330), Sofield (4,284) and Goodman (4,073). Green Party candidate Jim Brown earned 199 votes.
GOP leader Jim Moriarty said his team would await the final certified results before reacting to the apparent defeat, but was encouraged by his candidates' performance regardless of the outcome.
We were able to wage a vigorous campaign,Moriarty said, and I really believe we laid the groundwork here for two-party politics. This is the beginning for the Long Beach Republican Party.
Hennessy also said he would await the official count, but said, If they did take all three seats, I hope they don't see this as a mandate to continuing their rubber stamp government that they have. I hope that they look at these numbers and they wake up and smell the coffee and realize that the Long Beach Republican party is a force to be reckoned with.
Hennessy was pleased with his slate's campaign and believed his side got their message out to voters. In a time when there was a Democratic landslide in Nassau County, in Long Beach we kept it at a razor thin margin.
When numbers late Tuesday night appeared to show a sweep by their party, Democrat supporters poured into Remo's restaurant, TKOPS 180, to celebrate. Even Democrats were surprised by the strong showing of Kelly, who beat all comers by more than 200 votes.
I'm so pleased that a majority of people in the City of Long Beach appreciate how good things are in our city,Kelly said following the victory.
We stayed on the issues,Remo said of their campaign. We stayed on what's important for Long Beach. We didn't run with finger-pointing, we ran with what the Democrats have done and what Dan and I can add to what we will do.
Kearney said, I'm so pleased, everybody did so well. All three candidates expressed a need to do more work in some areas of town that the Republicans ran strong, particularly the West End and North Park. Overall, Kearney said, I think people are satisfied about what's going on in town.
