Here are the election results for the Worcester City Council At-Large race in 2009, compared to 2007. The data points are the % of ballots cast for each candidate.
Some obvious points:
Emmanuel Tsitsilianos did very poorly.
Joe O’Brien did very well.
Aside from O’Brien, challengers this time did worse than last time.
Petty and Toomey are stronger, Rushton and Lukes are weaker. Rushton and Petty basically switched places.
Two incumbents were forced off the council last time (Perotto and Irish), none were forced off in 2009.
(Yes, charts for district and School Committee races are forthcoming.)
The Telegram & Gazette is saying that all incumbents but School Committee member Bob Bogigian have won re-election. They say O’Brien has won the open City Council seat (Rosen not running for re-election) and mayorship; Novick & Biancheria are new on the School Committee (one of those seats being open, too).
Looking forward to seeing tomorrow’s numbers and making some useful charts.
Update via e-mail: “Channel 3 just referred to Joe Petty as ‘The Quiet Man’.” Heck yeah.
We talk about Gabe’s attempts to send his own survey to the City Council candidates; the “performance oval” behind City Hall; the Worcester energy barnraising; and the pros and cons of voting.
To celebrate the International Day of Climate Action, dozens of Worcesterites joined in an energy barnraising, weatherizing Genesis Club. It was a wonderful chance to reduce energy use, save a great organization some money, and learn how to seal a building against the cold.
Catholic Worker Claire Schaeffer-Duffy was emcee; Nate Pickens of Mosaic talked about his own experiences with violence in Worcester; Michael True explained the purpose of the Center; Congressman Jim McGovern shared some stories from his life and introduced keynote speaker Colman McCarthy, journalist and educator, who gave a wide-ranging talk on nonviolence and the people who practice it.
We revisit the idea of local bloggers filling a small part of the gap the T&G is leaving. At some point Mike will try to define numbers for this thing.
Brendan talks about the recent City Council and School Committee debates and explains why you might want to attend one.
Mike shares how much time and money it takes to do a weekly show on WCCA TV13–not that much!