Democrat Fred Esteves defeated Republican Jorge D. Santos Nov. 5 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 electorate . Write-in candidates received 74 votes or around 2% of the total vote. These numbers will need to be certified before becoming official.
Esteves took office the next day, Wednesday, Nov. 6, at a meeting of the mayor and Town Council. He replaces the formerly appointed representative, Renato da Silva, who Esteves beat in a June primary en route to the November victory.
Esteves will seek re-election next year — along with three other Town Council seats and the mayoralty.
We’ll have more on this race in the coming days.
Meanwhile, in North Arlington, Republicans Brian Fitzhenry (4194) and Allison Sheedy (4141) won their race for North Arlington Borough Council over Democrats John Balwierczak (2624) and John Yampaglia (2662).
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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.