Scarcely a hair on the head of City Clerk Martin Cole was disturbed late this afternoon when the final 703 absentee and provisional ballots from last week’s City Council race were tallied in Council Chambers before a crowd of 7.
Hardly anything about last week’s semi-final count was disturbed. The largest development of the one-hour program was that longtime Dep. City Clerk Ela Valladeres is retiring this spring.
With first-place finisher Andy Weissman and fourth-place Jim Clarke in the audience, their placements were confirmed as were Meghan Sahli-Wells’s runnerup spot and Mayor Mehaul O’Leary’s position in third place.
• Mr. Weissman expanded his margin of victory from 139 votes to 174.
• Ms. Sahli-Wells improved her lead over Mr. O’Leary from 52 to 84.
• Mr. O’Leary’s lead over Mr. Clarke shrank from 91 to 72.
• Mr. Clarke won the last vacant seat on the Council – for a two-year term – by a still hefty 383 votes over recent incumbent Scott Malsin, down from 405 last week.
The final count:
Mr. Weissman, 3,083.
Ms. Sahli-Wells, 2,909.
Mr. O’Leary, 2,825.
Mr. Clarke, 2,753.
Mr. Malsin, 2,370.
Stephen Murray, 965.
By a comfortable margin, Mr. Weissman won this afternoon’s count of late, but not too late, votes, attracting 453 to 418 for Ms. Sahli-Wells, 405 for Mr. Clarke, 386 for Mr. O’Leary, 357 for Mr. Malsin and 124 for Mr. Murray.
