Worcester, MA from Franklin St. (Public Domain)

This week in Worcester, there was really only one story, and that was this past Tuesday's citywide elections. Turnout was pretty light, as was to be expected of any off-year election, especially with no state elections or initiatives on the ballot. However, the light turnout wasn't enough to quiet the voice of the voters, who made a strong statement on Election Day.

November 3rd, 2009 – Throughout the Commonwealth, mayoral elections almost exclusively went to incumbents. Except, that is, for the City of Worcester. Former aide to U.S. Rep Jim McGovern (D-MA) and close friend to Worcester's own Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, Joe O'Brien won a resounding victory over incumbent mayor Konnie Lukes.

Out of 20,912 official ballots cast for mayor, 10,214 voted for Joe O'Brien and 5,663 voted for Konnie Lukes (50.5% - 28%). The nearly 23-point margin was attributed to several factors. First and foremost appeared to be O'Brien's organization. O'Brien had hundreds of volunteers knocking on doors, making phone calls, and offering rides to the polls on Election Day. Lukes, late in the afternoon, was seen driving voters to the polls herself. Another was the assistance of McGovern and Murray in loaning him their organizational skills. Finally, it appeared that use of social networking had an impact as well, as O'Brien went beyond the traditional website and engaged on Facebook and Twitter.

Lukes did not take the loss well, criticizing O'Brien later in the week for running a negative campaign (pot, meet kettle) and continued to complain about O'Brien's “connections in Boston”. One has to wonder, considering her legendary battles with former Mayor Tim Murray at City Council meetings in the past, that losing to Murray's BFF in such a fashion isn't driving much of the angst and emo-ness.

Councilor Kate Toomey finished third in the Mayoral race with 3,722 (18.4%) of the vote. Emmanuel Tsitsilianos finished with 595 votes, less than 3%.

The question on everyone's mind was, was the election a referendum on the job Konnie Lukes has done? Or, was it a case of O'Brien being a more popular candidate? Lukes supporters would claim the latter, but for the incumbent mayor to not only get killed in the Mayoral race, but to finish fifth out of six in the City Council race (keeping the seat by 1,101 votes, or 1.3%) seemed to be a very strong statement by voters, especially when you consider she finished about 5,000 votes behind O'Brien and 3,000 votes behind Toomey (whom she finished ahead of in the Mayoral race).

It's clear that Lukes' leadership style, and penchant for belittling Council members with whom she did not agree in open meetings; rubbed voters the wrong way. Conventional wisdom is that Lukes will relish returning to her role as “conscientious objector”; nit-picking, needling and harassing the new Mayor to the point of absurdity. If nothing else, we all know she does that very well. It will be interesting to see how the new Mayor handles it. If it's anything like Lukes' predecessor, it will be nothing if not entertaining.

All six members of the City Council were re-elected for another term, with newcomer Stephen Buchalter finishing just 700 votes behind the sixth-place finisher (Germain). For School Committee, both Biancheria and O'Connell-Novak join the Committee, and the two women unseated long-time incumbent Robert Bogigian, who finished dead last in the race. The five District Councilors elected were Joff Smith (District 1, by just 310 votes over Joe Casello), Phil Palmieri (District 2, with 84% of the vote), Paul Clancy (District 3, with 66% of the vote), Barbara Haller (District 4 over former Gubernatorial Candidate Grace Ross, who could only muster 800 votes), and William Eddy (District 5, unopposed).

Thus was the 2009 City-wide election, and thus is This Week in Worcester County.