In an upset, challenger Jim Day ousted three-term Board of Education member Glenn Elliot in Tuesday’s election. Incumbent Michael Unis was elected to a third term.
The unofficial tallies were:
Jim Day: 1467
Judy DiNapoli: 840
Glenn Elliott: 991
Michael Unis: 1369
Turnout for the election–the first contested Board election in many years, was 41.1%, compared with was 21.2% for the Town Council election earlier this year. The total turnout in the 2012 presidential election, by comparison, was 65.7%, down more than 10 percentage points from the 2008 general election.
Unis was elected to his first term on the Board while he was still a college student. He taught in Newark under the “Teach for America” program and recently became the director of operations at a charter school there. He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, improving education around the Common Core standards, and “school preservation”, which he intended to mean long-term financial planning and school safety.
Elliott was gracious in defeat, congratulating Day and Unis’ father at Town Hall, where the votes were counted. He had served three terms on the Board, and was a sitting member of the BOE’s Buildings & Grounds committee for most of that time.
DiNapoli polled the strongest in district five. She is a lifelong Verona resident, a graduate of Verona public schools and a former employee of the public school district. DiNapoli worked for the district for 35 years until she was laid off in 2011.
In separate action Tuesday night, the Board of Ed appointed former Board member Steve Spardel to fill the unexpired term of Dawn DuBois. The vote was three to one. Anthony Gardner and Donald Flood had also been nominated from the field of seven people who filed for the seat.
