Voters set up fall Pascack Valley mayor, council races

BY MICHAEL OLOHAN OF PASCACK PRESS

Pascackvalley

Slightly greater than 3% of Bergen Countyʼs 665,776 voters cast ballots in the mostly uncontested Democratic and Republican primary elections on June 6, with Pascack Valley party candidates hndily winning their nominations for the November General Election.

Historically, voter turnout is depressed in primaries as few intra-party contests occur. According to the Bergen County Clerkʼs Office, unofficial early tallies on June 6 showed a voter turnout of 21,123 voters countywide.

However, in Woodcliff Lake and Township of Washington,

15% SENIOR & MILITARY DISCOUNT incumbent Republicans faced challenges of a different sort.

Woodcliff Lake mayor race

Due to a snafu that left his filing petition short of valid signatures, Mayor Carlos Rendo, and his running mates, Julie B. Brodsky and Joshua S. Stern, needed to mount a vote-by-mail write-in campaign in order to be placed on the Republican line in Novemberʼs General Election.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Rendo told Pascack Press that Republican county committee officials informed him that he had succeeded.

“I feel great. It shows how hard work gets you to where you want to go,” said the two-term mayor, who said this would be his last four-year term should he be reelected.

Unofficial write-in results from the county Elections Division were expected to be released late Wednesday or Thursday, said officials, after our press deadline.

Rendo said though the filing snafu caused some headaches, he saw a silver lining. “This got Republicans to trust the vote-bymail process, a process all Republicans need to learn to defeat the Democratic Party (candidates).”

Rendo lost the race for Lieutenant Governor in 2017. ThenRepublican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno and Rendo opposed Democrats Philip Murphy and Sheila Oliver in the 2017 New Jersey governor election. Murphy and Oliver were reelected in 2021.