Tracy Towers Decides the 80th A.D. Race

New 80th A.D. Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj thanking the crowd of supporters, as running mate Incumbent 80 A.D. State Committeewoman Diane Cerino (in white blouse) looks on.

    It was not until after 12:30 AM that the 80^th A.D. race was over, and Mark Gjonaj declared the winner. Early returns had challenger Mark Gjonaj ahead by almost 20 points, and at 10 PM incumbent Naomi Rivera was already on television thanking those who had worked on her campaign. A rousing roar came from the large crowd that had gathered at the Gjonaj party (where I was at) thinking it was a concession speech, but it was going to be a long night. As more results came in the lead narrowed, and the 20 point lead shrunk to a single digit lead at one point. 

 

    The same problem that occurred in the June congressional election happened in this election as voters found that their name did not appear in the registration books. So any win in the 80^th A.D. had to be greater than the amount of any outstanding affidavit ballots or it could take weeks to get a winner. At 11PM Mark Gjonaj's lead was down to about 150 votes which was not large enough to declare victory yet. People were wondering why it was taking so long to get the full results in, and where was the Tracy Towers vote that was thought Gjonaj had won big. Tracy Tower residents had a big problem on their hands with a huge rent increase looming, and when it was said that Naomi Rivera could not help, Mark Gjonaj hired a lawyer to help the tenants stop the rent increase. 

 

    By 11:30 PM the Gjonaj lead started to grow again not to a safe margin of victory yet, but one could tell it would be a Gjonaj victory. A short time after midnight his lead had grown to over 500 votes (52 - 41 percent) clearly enough to declare victory as 99 percent of the vote was in. It was said that the Tracy Towers poll site (which has been historically late in getting in results) had just come in, and provided the winning margin of victory. Mark then arrived, congratulated everyone in the room, thanked everyone who was a part of his winning campaign, gave a brief speech, and then went around the room to shake everyone's hand. 

 

   With his victory decided some time before, the Democratic primary winner in the 87^th A.D. Mr. Luis Sepulveda came in to the ballroom at Maestro's to congratulate Mark Gjonaj on his victory. I suspect that Mr. Gjonaj has received by now several phone calls also congratulating him by many other Bronx elected officials, but by whom I do not know.

87 A.D. primary winner Luis Sepulveda poses for photo with 80 A.D. primary winner Mark Gjonaj. Both winners have their wives standing next to them.

    Finally let me say I do not know how the poll workers were able to endure a 16 hour workday, with many putting in even more time. I traveled through-out the 80^th A.D. yesterday stopping by almost everyone of the polling sites, and I tried to talk to as many people as I could which included the poll workers. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the City Council who are fighting for other workers rights to fair pay need to look into this as the $200.00 pay if overtime after 8 hours of work is factored in comes out to only $10.00 dollars an hour, without benefits is lower than the recent living wage bill passed by the city council.