Clean Sweep Continues Democratic Control in Lower Merion, Narberth

Democrats swept all five contested Lower Merion Board of Commissioners races in Tuesday's general election, keeping a 10-4 majority on the board, according to from Montgomery County election officials.

The party beat Republican challengers in wards 1, 3, 7, 9 and 13. Democrat Cheryl Gelber was unopposed in Ward 5, as was Republican Lew Gould in Ward 11.

The closest race was in Ward 1, where incumbent Dan Bernheim beat A.J. Kait with 53 percent of the vote. Ward 3's Paul McElhaney, Ward 7's Liz Rogan (the board president), Ward 9's George Manos and Ward 13's Brian McGuire each prevailed with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Lower Merion and Narberth Republican Committee Chairman Lance Rogers attributed the township losses to “tremendous spending” by Democratic candidates for Montgomery County commissioner Josh Shapiro and Leslie Richards, who won the election.

Republicans "chose to contest a number of commissioner races that are strongly Democratic districts,” said Bruce Reed, McGuire's predecessor. “Municipal elections get abysmally low turnout—in your opponents’ area, you want to encourage that. Lance Rogers should have been trying to suppress Lower Merion, a heavily Democratic area—instead he ran a slate of candidates against our Democratic commissioner candidates which caused our voters to come out in droves today.”

Richard Kaufman took 37 percent of the vote against Manos, an outcome roughly proportional with registration figures.

“[Bala Cynwyd] residents are going to get the neighborhood that they wanted, and they’re not going to like it,” said Kaufman, who while running said City Avenue rezoning was one of the most important issues facing residents.

McElhaney’s Republican challenger Ray Fullbright said, “I’m disappointed, but the people of Belmont Hills have spoken, and the best man won. I wish him luck.”

All five Democratic Lower Merion school board candidates beat the two independent candidates.

The three Democratic candidates for Narberth Borough Council—Bob Weisbord, Sam Quinn and Mike Alexander—were unchallenged.

“I’m very excited. I’m especially happy about the [Lower Merion] school board,” said Alexander at McShea's Tuesday evening. “Maybe down the road there will be some re-districting that I can get behind.”

Alexander, 30, a software developer for Susquehanna International Group in Bala Cynwyd, said one of his priorities for the newly constituted Borough Council was “modernizing our zoning code.” To that end, he’d like to bring a professional planner to the process, and borrow some ideas about parking from Lower Merion Township—ideas such as proximity to municipal parking lots.

Asked about the current desire to simplify the process for opening, say, a coffee shop, without the well-known Narberth zoning impediments, Alexander said he’s all for it, but that “I think we need to be smart about it.”