Democrat Fred Esteves defeated Republican Jorge D. Santos tonight in Kearny’s Third Ward Town Council race, unofficially, by a margin of 1,878 votes to 1,624, or 53 to 45% of the votes. Write-in candidates received 76 votes or around 2% of the vote. These numbers will need to be certified before becoming official.
When certified, Esteves will immediately become the new Third Ward representative in Kearny. He will serve for one year with his term ending Dec. 31, 2025.
We’ll have more on this race in the coming days.
Meanwhile, early-vote totals in North Arlington have Republicans Brian Fitzhenry (845) and Allison Sheedy (842) leading in the race for North Arlington Borough Council over Democrats John Balwierczak (772) and John Yampaglia (772). Those votes, according to the Bergen County Clerk’s Office, do not include any votes from today. We’ll update this race as soon as more results flow in.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.