"I slept good last night," said Kaplan on the Friday afternoon following his defeat of Ruben Torres, the Republican candidate for Ellenville mayor, by a count of 468 to 340. This will be Kaplan's third turn as mayor of Ellenville and the lifelong resident of Ellenville says the four-year term will be his last.

Kaplan says he is committed to continuing forward with village business and he has a list of priorities he is looking to accomplish over the next few months.

"The first order of business will be to name a replacement for Theresa Hyatt [who was elected to the Wawarsing Town Council] and bring the two new members [the other being new trustee, Francisco Oliveras] up to speed. Second, will be to work on a [2008-09] budget with little or no increase. Third, will be to continue the initiative to clean up the downtown and find ways to increase foot traffic in the downtown area. Finally, we want to sell the old village hall and rent out as much space in the new village hall as possible to increase jobs and traffic in our downtown area."

Kaplan On Election Results

Kaplan said he, "never takes an election lightly" and that he enjoyed campaigning as an opportunity to, "get out and hear what people have to say, both positive and negative. I literally hit every door in Ellenville, over the last month and a half."

Despite the win, the mayor admitted that the overall election results could be viewed as a sign of voter dissatisfaction.

"It is clear that the residents of the town, more than the village, took out on the people who are in office, things that to some extent, are beyond their control. I think the loss of jobs in the area could have played a part in that. Whereas you usually have a fairly good response to Democrats in the village of Ellenville, the town Democratic candidates basically lost the village."

He noted that Republican Wendy Tushak, who lost her bid for village trustee, still managed to get about 260 votes with "almost no campaigning." Kaplan said that such a strong showing with such little effort was the result of, "the Republican base vote."

In spite of the general voter sentiment, Kaplan said he is "deeply gratified that with the electorate in Ellenville, still, literally, in every district, I ran the best out of any of the candidates in the village, with the exception of Raymond [Younger, a village trustee], as far as having wide appeal."

Kaplan questioned the suggestion that his margin of victory was relatively small considering the fact that Democrats have a nearly 3-to-1 majority in the village by asking how Wawarsing's Town Supervisor, Democratic incumbent James Dolaway lost three out of the village's four districts.

"I was a judge for three terms," Kaplan explained, "and one thing about a being a judge, as opposed to being a mayor, is that every time you run, you run stronger than the time before. On the other hand, when you are in a political position, whether it's supervisor or trustee or mayor, you do have people who will hold you accountable for things that happen � some in your control, some out of your control."

"The bottom line is that when you are running in a local election and you've been around for a while, people are going to vote either for or against you. And every time you run, once you're in office for while, you're not just running against somebody. You are running against yourself. So it was Jeff Kaplan vs. Jeff Kaplan and Ruben Torres."

Torres Reacts

Republican mayoral candidate Ruben Torres said that he was "sad" he did not win, "not for myself but for the taxpayers. Because we have four more years of the same type of spending that was going on in the past."

Torres believes he lost the election because he did not get full Republican Party support but that his strong showing, against an incumbent, has opened a lot of eyes. "Basically, political parties operate on a theory that 'you fight the battles that you know you can win', and the party did not think this was a battle I could win. Now they see that we could have won � if I had a few more votes."

Torres called the election "an eye-opener," requiring "a lot of time," and that he plans on continuing to be a "spokesperson" in the village for those of his way of thinking.

One of Torres' main worries is the possibility of new units being built in the Ellenridge development and that the village is currently charging around $6,000 in taxes per unit, but that when the units are reassessed, "the village is going to knock down their taxes. Who is going to pay for the difference?"

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