Incumbents out, challengers battle for third BOE seat
West Milford. Voters booted two incumbents and four challengers are fighting a close battle in the Board of Education race Tuesday.
| 05 Nov 2019 | 11:56
The six BOE candidates during a recent forum at the high school. (
)
While the race for mayor and council was pretty clear, a battle for the third seat on the Board of Education is literally “too close to call.”
Incumbent BOE members Will Cytowicz and Steven Drew were sent packing by voters, getting the two lowest vote totals with 1,489 and 1,439 respectively, according to unofficial results posted Tuesday night by the Passaic County Clerk’s Office.
Challenger Jaycen Stillman will get a seat with 2,003 votes, followed by challenger Michael Conklin with 1,757 votes.
The battle for the final seat up in this year’s election, however, is currently too close to call with challenger Robert Woodier holding onto a four-vote lead over challenger Cortney Stephenson, 1,624 to 1,620, according to the results Tuesday night.
The unofficial results do not include absentee or provisional ballots and the race may not be finalized for a couple of weeks.
Although there are more votes to count, it doesn’t seem likely for either Cytowicz or Drew to make up the needed ground to recapture their seats.
Currently, Cytowicz trails the third highest vote recipient by about 135 votes and Drew trails by about 185 votes, according to the results.
We will update this story as the race develops.