The Moving Newark Forward slate, effectively the majority party in local school board elections, easily captured all three Board of Education seats up today by a wide margin, albeit with voter turnout in the range of 3%.
The low turnout is the latest indication that Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a potential candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2025, lacks the ability to get people in his city to vote.
With 94% of the vote counted, incumbents Hasani Council (3,149) and Josephine Garcia (3,074) were easily re-elected; their running mate, Allison James-Frison, captured an open seat with 2,923 votes. They defeated the three candidates on the Newark Kids Forward ticket: James Wright, Jr. (1,139), Thomas Luna (1,096), and Tawana Johnson-Emory (890).
Latoya Jackson followed with 574 votes, and Ade’Kamil Kelly (385) came in eighth.
Newark voters approved the school budget with 87% of the vote.
Flohisha Johnson, who won with Garcia and Council in 2020, did not seek re-election. Council is the son of Newark South Ward Democratic Chairman Patrick Council.
Another seat on the Newark school board will open up in January after A’Dorian Murray-Thomas steps down to become an Essex County Commissioner. She is unopposed in the primary and general elections.
Four Irvington school board members were re-elected without opposition: Synesha Benbow, Jordan Geffrard, and Audrey Lyon for three-year terms, and John F. Brown for an unexpired term. Voter turnout was roughly 10%.
Irvington approved it school budget with 81% of the vote.
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