MONROE — Two longtime Republican incumbents lost their Town Board seats, thanks to the changing loyalties of powerful voting blocs in the Hasidic Village of Kiryas Joel.
Councilmen Don Weeks and Peter Martin lost to Democratic challengers Gerard McQuade and Richard Colon.
Cards giving voting instructions within Kiryas Joel before the election suggested the outcome even before the results came in.
The powerful main voting bloc, which has historically supported incumbents on the Town Board, threw its support behind Weeks, but not Martin, who has served 20 years as a councilman. It also supported Supervisor Sandy Leonard, who beat challenger Gary Defilippis, the former Harriman police chief, to retain her seat.
Weeks had been on the board for 32 years and had the endorsement of the major Hasidic voting bloc, but not that of the less powerful dissident group in the village, which threw its support behind the Democratic challengers.
Martin said Tuesday he believed that Harley Doles, the lone Democrat on the Town Board, had a hand in changing the loyalties of Kiryas Joel voters. Doles has had an especially rocky relationship with his board colleagues since last week, when Councilman Jim Rogers allegedly attacked him during a board meeting.
Doles is married to town justice candidate Maria Vazquez-Doles, who also won her race with the endorsement of Kiryas Joel voters.
''Harley Doles is the Karl Rove of Monroe politics,'' Martin said, ''and he has chastised the incumbent Republicans for benefiting from a bloc vote, while the whole time he's been over there trying to get that bloc vote on his side; and from the sound of things, it looks like he's accomplished that.''
Monroe voters approved a proposal to raise the Monroe Free Library's budget by $69,855 to $1.7 million. The additional revenue will go toward more DVDs and audio-visual offerings, as well as a fund to expand the current building.
Kannon, Murray take Chester
In other elections, longtime incumbent Democrat Cindy Smith lost her seat on the Chester Town Board to Republican Matthew Kannon. Republican incumbent Jerry Murray kept his seat on the board.
And in Blooming Grove, Republicans Kathy Wells-Calhoun and Michael Jahn, won board seats, beating out two Democratic and two Conservative challengers.
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