Wellsville Voters Screaming For Change

Tuesday - November 3 was General Election. In Wellsville we were voting for two council seats, two seats on the Board-of-Education, an unexpired seat on the BOE, State Issues & County levies. The vote for the council seats has to be the biggest eye opener with our Village government.

Political newcomer Susan Haugh had the largest vote total of all five candidates with 429 voters giving her the winning bid. That was a whopping 34% of all votes cast. Her vote total was nearly two to one to the next highest count for the other seat. That second seat went to first term Councilwoman Rosie Goss.

Haugh, a forty something year old new grandmother, had a four point platform according to her campaign brochure. She proposes reviewing existing ordinances pertaining to property owners up keep of their Wellsville property. Secondly she would like to see Council be more proactive pursuing new businesses. She would also like to see our Village officials have an open forum town hall meetings once in awhile for residents to air out their concerns. That can be done at Council meetings but the Public Speaking comes early on their agenda and it has time limit restrictions. Her last platform proposes to hold an annual appreciation event for all of our volunteer groups. There's a list of them that have accomplished quite a bit to benefit the village in spite of the current economic conditions.

Before I hit the sack this morning I knew who the winners were but didn't realize the margins of the vote count. They say first impressions are more often correct rather than second guessing. My first impressions this morning was "wake up"! Although unofficial according to the morning papers Goss had 25 more votes than the the third place vote getter. As it looks the other three candidates just diluted the votes. From my vantage point Mrs. Goss is open and honest advocating fiscal responsibility for village funds. With her getting re-elected and Haugh commandingly given the nod you just have to think it will not be business as usual come January. The voters have spoken.

Congratulations to Mrs. Haugh & Mrs. Goss and good luck. We'll have more on yesterday's election results a little later. I would also like to extend our congrats to Board-of-Education winners Tom Brophey, Karen Dash & Bill Miller.

Before closing I would like to offer "spanks" & a "roast" to The Review. In a negligent, in-sensitive lack of paying attention to detail that they are getting famous for there was an article in this morning's edition titled "New faces..., etc." It's on page 7A. It includes remarks from Mrs. Haugh and remarks from one of the losing candidates, three paragraphs of them. Other than giving a vote total earlier in the piece there was nothing about Mrs. Goss. You get the impression that the fourth place vote getter was a winner. That ain't right.

Told you it was hard to beat a good incumbent "Buford"...

ole nib