MARY L. O’CONNELL
WESTFIELD – Ward 4 voters selected the two candidates who will face each other on the Nov. 5 ballot, eliminating one of the two challengers seeking to unseat a four-term incumbent.
Michael J. Burns and Mary L. O’Connell will vie for the Ward 4 City Council seat in the November general election. O’Connell received a total of 326 votes while Burns garnered 200 votes out of a total of 565 ballots cast.
The unofficial results, released last night from the office of the City Clerk, show that only 14.86 percent of the 3,802 registered Ward 4 voters participated in the preliminary election. The Ward 4 City Council preliminary election was the only electoral action in the city yesterday.
Incumbent O’Connell said this morning that she “is feeling positive” about the preliminary results.
MIKAEL J. BURNS
“I’m encouraged by the margin of victory,” O’Connell said. “I’m going to continue doing my job as a City Councilor. As for my campaign, I have to get the word out about what I’ve done and my vision for the next two years.
“I plan to keep my campaign positive,” O’Connell said, ” to communicate that I’m available and responsive to my constituents. I think that is important.”
Burns said that the low turnout is just a “snapshot” of the ward and that O’Connell was able to “bring her people out” for the preliminary election.
“The mayoral and state senate elections will bring more people out, a much higher percentage of voter participation. It will be game on with that larger turnout,” Burns said. “I’m excited and looking forward to the general election.
“I think I did very well in the preliminary. I worked hard and now I’m going to work harder, get out a meet a lot of people,” Burns said.
The candidate eliminated in the preliminary election attributed O’Connell’s and Burns’ success to name recognition and long-term community visibility.
“I learned that I’d need to do things differently,” John J. Michaliszyn said. “I learned that Mary and Mike have a lot of name recognition, have a lot of social connections.
Standing at the Polls (Tuesday) it seemed that they knew the personnel stories, family histories of everyone coming in to vote,” Michaliszyn said. “I was pretty sober about who I was going up against. I wanted to see what it was like, what it would take. My name may pop up again.”
