Well the votes, all 6,406 of them (17.39% trun-out) have been tallied. The only way to describe the results is "See change" with newly elected officials riding in on a wave of anti-development sentiments and poorly scaled fiscal penury.
The perrenially anti-change councilmember, Phyllis Marcuccio (3,311 votes; 52.2%), has ousted incumbant mayor Susan Hoffman (2,998 votes; 47.8%) winning by a total of 313 votes. Like everywhere else this seems to have been a getting out the base election, although I'll have to look at the district breakdown to know for sure. My sense is that Marcuccio's turf, the east of the pike voting districts 3, 4 and 5 produced the solid base of Marcuccio's votes most probably aging folks and Twinbrook residents in the shadow of a looming housing development.
I suspect the Beall's Grant II affordable housing controversy played a big role in Marcuccio's success. During the West End Civic Association's candidates forum, Marcuccio pandered to the crowd with a blunt opposition to the Beall's Grant II development. In contrast, Hoffman, who is herself a West End resident defended the compromise process bewteen the Developer and the WECA. I suspect district 2 (most of which is comprised of the West End) returns will reveal a stronger than usual Marcuccio showing.
In part, I base the above reasoning on the strong showing of Bridget Newton, Vice President of the West End Civic Association, who actually received more votes (3,390; 14.91%) than the top incumbant vote getter Piotr Gajewski (3,240; 14.25%). Basically, Newton ran on a platform strikingly similar to Marcuccio's but with a heavier emphasis on well spun anti-development sentiments (as well as a fair amount of quid pro quo support from Board of Education member Laura Berthiaume, for whom Newton was campaign treasurer).
The other new addition if former Mayoral candidate Mark Pierzchala (2,633 votes; 11.58%) who edged out my home district candidate, Carl Henn (2,571 votes; 11.31%) for the last seat on the Council. Not surprisingly, his platform was comparable to Marcuccio/Newton with emphasis on fiscal penury, defense of neighborhoods against development and yet another vague call for civility.
Thus there seems to be a new apparent majority of council votes that envision reformatting government process, near-sighted penny pinching and cessation of all development.
Thankfully, West End resident John Britton (3,056 votes; 13.5%) was re-elected, probably due to his location of residence and not his reality-based efforts to resolve the Beall's Grant II controversy or his frequent co-voting with former Mayor Hoffman. Piotr Gajewski was also re-elected to the council, but I am not quite as relieved. Though Gajewski's positions have been acceptable over his tenure the tenor of his campaign seems to demark a shift towards the Marcuccio end of the spectrum, which is a bit ironic in that he basically represents the massive King's Farm development.
In the end, this election is a bitter pill for me to swallow and I suspect many unsuspecting disengaged Rockville citizens. Time will tell just how severe this "course correction" will be...