The Village of New Paltz Board of Trustees will welcome two new members: KT Tobin and William Murray.
At approximately 9:40 p.m. on Tuesday, 40 minutes after polls closed, the election results were announced: Tobin received 376 votes and Murray received 300.
Fellow candidates Rebecca Rotzler, Galo Vasquez and Celeste Tesoriero received 191, 136 and 126 votes, respectively. An additional three write-ins were cast, two for Amy Cohen and one for former mayor Jason West, bringing the total number of votes to 1,132. Together, Tobin and Murray received about 60 percent of the total votes cast.
New trustees’ terms last four years and will begin on June 1.
Tobin, Murray and Tesoriero all waited in the firehouse for the results to be announced as absentee ballots were counted. Once announced, while pleased with the results, Tobin said that the number of total votes was low when compared to mayoral elections and that she never wanted to be too confident of a possible victory.
“People were telling me ‘you’ve got this in the bag,’ but you can never know, especially after what happened in November,” she said.
In the last mayoral election in 2015, 871 votes were cast for four candidates, resulting in a win for Tim Rogers with 353 of those votes.
Tobin also said that she is looking forward to tackling the issues she talked about during her campaign, such as finding a viable water source for the village and town and resisting federal immigration policies on a local level when necessary.
Murray said that his win came as a complete surprise given that he had never run for a position like village trustee before, and that he would encourage others to do the same.
“You learn a lot about yourself and interact with the community in ways like never before,” he said.
He also said that there will be little time to rest despite elections being over, given his role as an interior firefighter and his involvement on the Ulster County Planning Board. Murray is also looking forward to facing issues he talked about during his campaign, like biker and pedestrian safety in regards to a lower speed limit.
Of the five running for the two open seats, Rotzler was the only incumbent. Tobin ran on the Progressive party line, Murray on the Villager People’s party line, Rotzler on the Innovation party line, Vasquez on the SUNY Student party line and Tesoriero on the Tenant party line.