In a municipal election in which three Board of Trustee seats were up for grabs, the Pure Progress slate swept to victory with big margins.

Janine Bauer—a former interim Trustee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Board in 2007—was the leading vote-getter with 1,350 votes, followed by sitting Trustee Michael Goldberg with 1,331 votes and Nancy Gould with 1,265 votes.

The Vision Action Balance slate, comprised of former Trustee Stephen Steglitz, Mary Washington-Nieves and Dale Favors, won 793, 827 and 746 votes respectively.

Pure Progress celebrated victory at Toro Loco, while Vision Action Balance had its post-election event at Cryan's across the street.

Voter turnout was substantially lighter than in May 2007—when four Board of Trustee seats and the Village presidency were at stake—with 2,138 votes cast, not counting absentee ballots. By comparison, 3,943 votes were cast for Village President in 2007.

Speaking to a subdued gathering of supporters that included Cryan's owner Jimmy Cryan and former Village President Bill Calabrese at around 8:30 p.m., Steglitz—a Trustee from 1993 to 2005—expressed surprise at the results from the polling stations, which a campaign volunteer, Tom Morris, was inputting into a spreadsheet that was projected onto a wall of the Cryan's banquet area.

"I thought we'd do better," said Steglitz, who noted that more seats on the Board will open up in two years but that he probably won't be running for one. "I think the problem is a lot of people are new in town. They don't see where the Village was in 1988 or 1996."

Across the street at Toro Loco's lounge, the mood was festive as the winners and their supporters—including Village President Douglas Newman and Trustees Deborah Davis Ford, Howard Levison and Mark Rosner—celebrated an electoral outcome that had by no means been certain.

"I really expected it to be very close," said Goldberg, who noted that Vision Action Balance had campaigned more visibly than the opposing ticket two years earlier.

The three winners—who had been up since 4 a.m., first stopping at the train station at 6 a.m. to greet commuters—took turns thanking supporters and volunteers. Bauer was first and thanked Goldberg for inviting her to join Pure Progress, since she had run on the opposing ticket in 2007.

"This doesn't mean I'm going to always agree with you," she jokingly said.

Goldberg was watery-eyed when delivering his remarks and said he believed the outcome was a referendum on the Board's work over the last two years.

"As I said before, somewhat tongue in cheek, the Stacey Jennings era is over," said Goldberg, referring to his current Board colleague, with whom he had occasionally clashed in public meetings—including Monday's—and whose term will effectively expire at next Monday's reorganization meeting when the new Trustees are sworn in. (Jennings supported the other ticket and accompanied the Vision Action Balance candidates when they came to Toro Loco to shake the victors' hands after the results came in.)

Newman also expressed satisfaction at the election of three Trustees he expects to be able to work together.

"At the end of the day, we live in a very smart community," he said, adding that it's "not that they're going to always agree because that's not the point, but they're going to take their responsibility very seriously."