With winter weather bearing down on the area, voters were out in force on Election Day Tuesday to make their voices heard at the ballot box.

On the national level, there was minimal controversy as President Barack Obama split the popular vote with his opponent Mitt Romney, but gathered enough electoral votes to handily win re-election. New York elected Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to serve another six years in Congress.

On the local level, it’s all official. Roughly 2,500 votes were cast in the Sloatsburg Village Trustee contest, which saw two new trustees elected to the Village Board. Thomas Buckley, Jr., who garnered the most votes in the race, and Dan O’Leary III won out over incumbents Barbara Berntsen and Mark Reimer.

Buckley, a Sloatsburg native son, had some 800 votes while O’Leary gathered up 746. Both Berntsen and Reimer won approximately 400 plus votes — which amounts to a political mandate for the Buckley/O’Leary platform.

“The residents of this village felt it was time for a change,” said O’Leary about the results. He said their message appeared to resonate with voters.

Mayor Carl Wright was re-elected to his 9th non-consecutive term, which would make him Sloatsburg’s longest serving mayor and public official. Thomas Newman, Jr. won another term as Justice for the Village of Sloatsburg. Newman garnered some 1,000 votes.

The Village Trustee contest heated up around election day, with candidates making appeals to voters that they would preserve the rural character of the village and fight against overdevelopment and outsourcing village services.

Buckley and O’Leary waited out election results with friends and family at Sunnyside’s Bar & Grill on Orange Turnpike, while Berntsen, Reimer and Wright gathered in the village at Berntsen’s office. After polls closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday night, minutes stretched into hours before the Rockland County Board of Elections finally released local results.

Dan O’Leary said it felt like the election was a lot closer than the results revealed.

“The last I checked, we were pretty close,” O’Leary said. The voter tally finally reached Sunnyside’s at nearly 11 p.m., at which time both candidates received a congratulations call from Mayor Wright, who supported the incumbents.

In an act of community unity, Berntsen and Reimer posted a message last night on their campaign website congratulating their opponents. “We have had a wonderful experience serving the Village and it is now time for a change. Best of luck to you both and to Mayor Carl Wright. We hope you will support him and come to enjoy the great working relationship we have had with him over these many years. Thank you to everyone for the support you have trusted us with over these years. It has been a wonderful time and we have no regrets.”

Reimer has served as a trustee for more than ten years and Berntsen eight. Berntsen has been instrumental in reviving historic and business renovation in the village’s central business district, as well as a serving as a powerful preservationist voice in the community — her actions helped save and restore the Jacob Sloat House (Harmony Hall), where she now serves as president of the Friends of Harmony Hall.

Reimer, first elected in the November 2000 election during a populist effort by residents to thwart development projects in the village, has worked to help retain Sloatsburg’s rural character.

Note of correction: The new trustees will be sworn into office at the Monday, December 3 Village Board reorganization meeting, which is the annual meeting that sets meeting times, where appointments are made by the mayor, including agency commissioners, board chairs and members, as well as a new deputy mayor.

Other Contests

State Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt, a Republican from Greenwood Lake, had a tough fight in her re-election bid for a fifth 98th Assembly District term against Town of Monroe Councilman Gerard McQuade, who ran on the Democrat ticket. An electrician and second-generation union worker, McQaude pushed a workering class platform — Rabbitt voted against increasing the state’s minimum wage — and also enjoyed block vote support from the hasidic village of Kiryas Joel and the hasidic community of New Square, but Rabbitt eventually won the Rockland vote. McQuade took Orange County. Unofficial results show Rabbitt won the close Assembly race.

Meanwhile, incumbent Democrat State Senator David Carlucci won handily against Republican Janis Castaldi for another two year term. Carlucci will preside over a reduced and weirdly configured 38th District that includes Ramapo, Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, and Ossining in Westchester County.