Unofficial results from Essex County Clerk show an incumbent sweep in the Montclair Board of Education race. Current BOE members Melanie Deysher, Phaedra Dunn and Allison Silverstein have received the most votes for the three seats. The next candidate who comes close is Dr. Kimberley Robinson Santos. Residents were able to choose from vote by mail, early voting and in person voting, but turnout was still low; unofficial numbers show a little more than 8,000 residents voting in Montclair.
Deysher, Dunn and Silverstein ran a campaign with the slogan “Progress, Integrity and Dedication.”
Silverstein, currently board president, joined the board in September 2020, after an appointment by Mayor Sean Spiller. Deysher and Dunn made history in Montclair when they won the first ever election for Montclair Board of Education members in March 2022.
There were no races for governor, president or Congress, resulting in low turnout for an “off-year” election, but locally, there were seats in the Legislature and Assembly on the ballot.
Montclair is in New Jersey’s 27th Legislative District, along with Livingston, Millburn, Montclair, Roseland and West Orange in Essex County and Clifton in Passaic County.
Unofficial results have Assemblyman John McKeon, a Democrat, winning his bid for Senate. McKeon, who would fill the seat vacated by longtime Democratic Sen. Richard Codey, got more than three times the votes of his challenger, Michael D. Byrne, a Republican.
The two Democratic candidates for Assembly in the 27th district — Rosy Bagolie of Livingston and Alixon Collazos-Gill of Montclair — are the projected winners, beating out Republican candidates Irene DeVita and Michael G. Mecca Jr., both of Clifton. Collazos-Gill’s husband, Brendan Gill, also won re-election as Essex County Commissioner at Large.
