Harrison Elections Follow-up: Republicans Also See Victories For Town Council

Harrison Repubican town councilman-elect Fred Sciliano had no idea that there would be across-the-board GOPs wins this election season, but that’s already a thing of the past.

“We have a lot of hard work ahead,” Sciliano said when asked what issues he and the other board members planned to tackle first when they take office.

“The current position is we have to deal with the budget,” he said.

Sciliano attributed his re-election to the way he has served the town for the last four years. “Honesty, hard work and listening to other people” is what it’s all about, according to Sciliano.

Republican winner Steve Malfitano could not be reached for comment.

On the losing end, Democrat Howard Hollander said the Republican campaign was more organized and better funded. Two key factors that resulted in his loss. 

“For me personally, I knew I was the underdog. Everybody on the ballot had prior experience and I did not. I’ve never run a campaign before personally, so a lot of this was new to me,” said Hollander.

He also cited Supervisor Joan Walsh’s desire to run her own campaign, while busied by typical day-to-day duties, as an obstacle.

“We were trying to meet and do things and she was preparing her budget and she had meetings to go to. . . so I think Joan’s time, personally, was extremely limited,” said Hollander.

Also on the losing side was Democrat Pat Vetere.

While Vetere declined to comment on where his run went wrong, he expressed a firm desire to congratulate all the winners.

Vetere, too, cited that he felt the Republicans ran a better campaign.“I guess my time was up,” Vetere said.