The Rockville City Council elections are over and while the results aren’t official until certified, congratulations to Phyllis Marcuccio who will continue as Mayor, Bridget Newton and Mark Pierzchala who will continue on Council, Tom Moore who will be new on Council, and John Hall who will return to Council after a brief hiatus (and thanks to John Britton and Piotr Gajewski for their recent service on Council).  No doubt everyone has already seen the election returns and noted that the Mayor’s race was not only heated but close–they were separated by 415 votes out of a total of 6113 votes.  If 209 people (that’s 3 percent of those voting for Mayor) had voted differently, we’d have someone else as Mayor.  It’s even closer in the Council race–Moore made it onto Council by just 51 votes.  So if anyone thinks their vote doesn’t count, think again if you’re living in Rockville.

Although we know the election results for the entire city, Roald Schrack has broken it down by precinct which provides a clearer picture of what happened–and what it might mean for the governance of the city during the next two years:

1. Voting followed two different clusters of candidates:  Hall-Gottfried-Newton-Trahan vs Moore-Onley-Pierzchala.  That suggests that the community has formed two different visions for its governance, and since the election resulted in an even split among these two “slates” on Council, we might have Continue reading →