Garfield mayor will seek re-election, announces running mates

Garfield Mayor Richard Rigoglioso said on Monday that he will seek re-election to a second term in the November 2020 non-partisan municipal election when all five seats on the local governing body will be up.

Rigoglioso will run with incumbents Joseph Delaney III, Erin Delaney and will be joined on their ticket by Romi Herrera and Pawel Maslag.

Two longtime incumbents, Frank J. Calandriello and Louis Aloia, have not yet announced if they will seek re-election next year.

Rigoglioso, the Garfield Middle School principal, was elected to the council in 2016 and became mayor after emerging as the top vote-getter in the municipal election.

Delaney, a former school board member, was first elected to the council in a 2002 special election following the death of longtime councilman and former mayor Frank B. Calandriello,  the father of the current councilman.  He was allied with a political faction headed by the Conte family, the blood enemies of the Calandriello family.

His daughter, Erin, the Elmwood Park Municipal Clerk, won a council seat in 2016.

Herrera is making his third bid for a council seat.  In 2016, he finished sixth in a field of ten candidates for five seats.  He finished 72 votes behind Aloia.

In that race, incumbent Tana Raymond, a Democrat who backed Republican Chris Christie for governor in 2009 and 2013, lost her seat.  She finished 7 votes behind Herrera.

Maslag, a teacher in New York City, is making his first bid for public office.

Calandriello and Aloia, both former mayors, have been on the council since 1996.

Turnout in local elections is typically high because races are run in a presidential year.  Turnout in 2016 was 65.4%.