Melfi, Magee score decisive victories

Voters in Girard and Hubbard spoke loudly Tuesday, and in so doing have given James J. Melfi and Arthur U. Magee mandates to bring about changes in their communities.
In Girard, Melfi, seeking a second term as mayor, won a sometimes bruising Democratic primary with a 403-vote margin over his nearest challenger, Joseph P. Shelby. But more significantly, the voters paid scant attention to two well-known politicians, former Mayor Vincent Schuyler and council President Louis Adovasio. Schuyler garnered 954 votes, while Adovasio received 265, in the complete but unofficial results posted by the Trumbull County Board of Elections.
Melfi can now move forward boldly in his quest to solve the many problems he inherited four years ago. At the top of the list is Girard's financial condition. Through strong management and a no-nonsense attitude, the mayor has put city government on a course to recovery that should result in the lifting of a state-mandated fiscal watch in the not too distant future.
In Hubbard, former Trumbull County Commissioner Magee proved that all politics is indeed local. At a time when many taxpayers are unhappy with officeholders who play musical chairs with public jobs in an attempt to boost their pensions and get around the term limits law (on the state level), Residents welcomed Magee with open arms. It didn't matter to them that he had failed in 1997 to win a fifth term as commissioner and that he had been in politics for more than two decades.
The former mayor of Hubbard (1974-1981) and former member of council (1962-1974) struck a chord with the people when he promised to "return fiscal and overall sound management to the city" and to be "more responsive to the real concerns of the people in the community."
Endorsement
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that The Vindicator did not endorse Magee for the Democratic nomination, choosing instead to go with Mayor George P. Praznik. Praznik was appointed in 1996 and then ran for a full four-year term in 1999.
Our decision was based on the fact that Praznik, while certainly not as outgoing as Magee, has been an honest, steady chief executive in a city facing monumental challenges. For the challenger to have received our support, there had to have been more than just sound bites in his campaign platform -- at least during his appearance before Vindicator editors and writers.
We were anticipating that Magee would come into the meeting armed with budgetary analyses to demonstrate Praznik's mismanagement of the city. After all, that's what he did when he ran for other offices. Magee always impressed us with his knowledge and his attention to detail.
Yet, in talking about Hubbard's finances, he acknowledged that he had not studied the budget. That made us wonder why he was a candidate for mayor.
But the people of Hubbard obviously heard something from Magee that we did not, because almost 71 percent of the 2,283 Democrats who went to the polls Tuesday voted for him. That's a landslide in anybody's book.
Magee is astute enough to understand that such support can be fleeting -- if the residents find in short order that the city is not better off with a new man at the helm.
For now, however, in Girard and Hubbard, two politicians have every right to feel emboldened by the results of Tuesday's primary. Neither has opposition in November, which means that in January, Melfi will begin a second four-year term, and Magee will have come almost full circle in his political career.
We wish them luck.