April 16,2008.  Virginia Santos, David J. Stevenson,Jr. and John J. Campbell won seats on the Kearny Board of Education last night.  Santos and Campbell were incumbents* and Stevenson previously sat on the school board from 1993-2005 when he was defeated at the polls.  Santos received the most votes at 741, Stevenson received 659 votes, and Campbell received 612 votes.  The vote count does not take into account Absentee Votes.  Paul Castelli received 573 votes.  It is possible if there were over 40 Absentee Votes in favor of Castelli that he could overtake Campbell.  John Frasca, who ran on the Santos & Stevenson slate, received the least amount of votes at 513.

As usual a very small percentage of voters decided who will sit on the Kearny School Board.  The School Board budget makes up over 50 percent of the property tax bill in Kearny.  There has been a call to move School Board Elections to the Primary Election Day or the General Election Day to save election expenses and increase voter turnout.  Both the Primary and General Election historically have larger voter turnout.

*(Corrrection of 4/19/2008.  As pointed out by one of readers, John Campbell was not an incumbent as we reported.  John Campbell had previously served on the Kearny School Board before being defeated and was re-elected to the Board.  Thanks to our reader for pointing that out.)