Observers: Oyster Bay election sent clear message

In 2013, Oyster Bay Town Republican Supervisor John Venditto defeated his Democratic opponent in a landslide with 70.4 percent of the vote.

That sense of invincibility vanished last week, when Bayville attorney John Mangelli, a virtual unknown running on the Democratic line, ended election night 68 votes ahead of the nine-term incumbent. That close finish means the race won't be decided until absentee ballots are counted and potential legal challenges resolved.

"This was about John Venditto and about people who have supported him for a long time telling him that they're really unhappy with what they are reading and hearing and seeing is going on around Town Hall," said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.

Republican Councilman Joseph Muscarella blamed voter complacency. "Supporters of John Venditto didn't come to the polls," he said, adding Venditto "has made the town a better place to live and raise your family."

But Venditto's administration has been rocked by recent scandal. In March, Commissioner of Planning and Development Frederick Ippolito was indicted on federal tax evasion charges, alleging that he failed to report $2 million of income from a town contractor and a member of the contractor's family. Ippolito, who pleaded not guilty, remains on the job while his trial looms.

In September, town concessionaire and longtime political supporter Harendra Singh was indicted on 13 federal charges that included allegedly bribing an Oyster Bay official to get the town to guarantee $20 million in loans.

Venditto "wasn't being punished for raising taxes, or boosting borrowing, or not having cleared the roads fast enough; it was about corruption," Levy said. "You had a lot of Republicans, who almost certainly had voted for Venditto in the past, going to the polls and voting for somebody who they'd never heard of."

Referendum on incumbent

Michael Dawidziak, a Bohemia-based political consultant, said the steady stream of corruption stories hurt Venditto.

"All races, when there is an incumbent, is first and foremost a referendum on the incumbent," Dawidziak said. "When things are bad, the people are going to the executive to say, 'You're in charge.' "

The counting of absentee ballots -- 1,765 had been received by the Nassau County Board of Elections as of Friday -- is expected to begin on Thursday.

Unofficial results last week showed Republican incumbents in Oyster Bay won all three open board member offices, town clerk, and receiver of taxes by comfortable margins. "It was clear that this was not an anti-Republican vote, because all the other Republicans did fine," Dawidziak said.

In Venditto's six previous re-election bids, he never received less than 64 percent of the vote, election results show.

And the incumbent's party has a significant edge in enrollment: 38.5 percent of the town's 218,040 voters are registered Republicans while 31.4 percent are registered Democrats. Mangelli ran on the Democratic ticket but is part of the town's next largest voting block, the 23.8 percent who do not belong to a political party.

Venditto's Republican town board allies handily won re-election, but their victory margins fell by two-thirds to 3-to-4 percentage points.

Democrat Robert Freier, who received nearly 19,000 votes in his unsuccessful bid for a town board seat, attributed tighter victory margins to voters' anger over corruption and lack of government transparency. "We woke a lot of people up about what's been going on in the Town of Oyster Bay," Freier said. "I think that's why we made it so close."

Republicans heavily outspent Democrats, as they have in years past. The Town of Oyster Bay Republican Committee raised $157,515 and spent $158,659 while its Democratic Committee counterpart raised $33,342 and spent $20,596, according to state Election Board filings.

Venditto launched a television ad blitz in the campaign's waning days. In contrast to his last election, contributions to his campaign from people and businesses shrank toward the end, and he instead relied on a late boost of $125,950 -- almost entirely from Republican campaigns, committees and clubs, campaign finance filings indicate.

"It's clear the Republicans knew that something was percolating, or else they never would have spent as much as they did down the stretch against a candidate who even many political experts knew nothing about," Levy said.

Voting against, not forOn Election Day, Jodi Taggart, 55, a registered independent from Hicksville, was an example of the mood. She said she was voting primarily to help defeat the incumbents. "I'm really voting against, instead of for, because I'm tired of the Town of Oyster Bay and Nassau County corruption and the sense of entitlement," Taggart said as she was about to walk into the polls at Hicksville Middle School. "I'm sick of it."

With nearly half the vote, Venditto still has supporters: Larraine Murphy Correri of North Massapequa said she voted for incumbents because "things are going pretty well out here."

"High taxes, but this is what you get," Correri said, referring to the town's parks and schools.

If Mangelli wins, he will face an all-Republican town board. Former Supervisor Lewis Yevoli, a Democrat who preceded Venditto, had the same situation when he was elected in 1991. "It's going to be the six-to-one club," Yevoli said.

Beside just his one vote, Mangelli would have no veto power, which could make it difficult to get things done, he said.

"The most important thing a supervisor has is the bully pulpit," Yevoli said. "If it's done correctly, you're taking your case to the public."

If Venditto is declared winner, he needs to learn from his loss of public support, Yevoli said.

"There will still be dramatic changes," Yevoli said of a possible 10th Venditto term. "The public has spoken. They spoke a loud and clear message, and you have to honor that."