Control of the Board of Estimate and Taxation remained where it's always been Tuesday, in the hands of the town Republican Party.
"So we're going to start borrowing longer and paying higher interest rates. Oh, I forgot, we're not. We're not doing that. Status quo. If we want it, we're going to pay for it, like we've done since the `20s. It's what made Greenwich, Greenwich," Republican Michael Mason, the current BET chairman, said Tuesday night.
Heading into Tuesday's election for the finance board, little had been left undecided.
All 12 seats were open. By town rules, no party can occupy more than half. Each party, also according to rules, nominated six people. With no minor party or independent candidates in the race, the 12 nominees were sure things, regardless of how actual balloting went.
The only thing up for grabs was the chairmanship of the board. The party whose candidates receive the most cumulative votes on Election Day gets to choose the chairman, who gets to break any tie votes on the board and assign membership of the board's committees, including the powerful Budget Committee.
The six Republican BET candidates collected a total of 36,174 votes to the 22,237 garnered by all six Democratic BET candidates.
The party with the upper hand also is assured of being able to control the budget guidelines that the BET sets at the start of each budget season.
The chairman's seat in Greenwich has forever belonged to a Republican, but Democrats hoped to make a run at it this year, in particular by convincing voters of the wisdom of acquiring debt to pay for capital projects over a 20-year term instead of the town's current practice of five years. Doing so, they argued, would lower the annual debt burden and space the cost of projects out over the life of their usefulness.
On the Republican side of the finance board, incumbents Michael Mason, Arthur Norton, Leslie Tarkington and Marc Johnson will return for another term.
Former Board of Education Chairman Nancy Weissler and Bill Drake, chairman of the Representative Town Meeting's Budget Overview Committee, will take the places of departing Joseph Pellegrino and Gregory Bedrosian.
On the Democratic side, Randall Huffman, William Finger, Mary Lee Kiernan, Jeffrey Ramer and Sean Goldrick are returning. Business executive John Blankley, who ran for first selectman in 2011 and the state House of Representatives last year, will replace Robert Brady.
"We didn't get enough votes to get the chairmanship, but what we did get was the high ground," said Democratic Town Committee Chairman Frank Farricker. "There's no question that responsible spending and responsible budgeting, the way that responsible people do it, is going to take the day in Greenwich. There is no question we won that debate in the community."