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KATONAH, N.Y. The hotly contested County Legislator race for District 2 is unofficially settled, with Democratic incumbent Peter Harckham set to regain his seat on the legislature.
District 2 includes Bedford, Mount Kisco, Pound Ridge, Somers, North Salem and Lewisboro.
After a Tuesday night of confusion and a Wednesday of machines being impounded by the Westchester County Board of Elections, the unofficial tallies from all 52 districts within District 2 have been reported. Harckham garnered an unofficial 55 percent of the votes, says the Board of Elections and leads by 810 votes. Peter Michaelis (R) fell to second with 45 percent.
Michaelis gave his concession to Harckham, calling him on Thursday to send his congratulations.
We had a lengthy and friendly conversation," Harckham said. "I consider Peter a friend and greatly respect all that he has done for Bedford. He ran a great campaign and he should be proud of his efforts."
For the second time running against Harckham, Michaelis could not garner enough tallies. Harckham defeated Michaelis in 2007 by 365 votes.
Harckham is a resident of Katonah and is a long time member of the communications field. He is president of Harckham Media Group, LLC after working in advertising in New York City and also owns and manages K&E Farms, a horse farm in Katonah.
"This was an old-fashioned democratic victory," he said. "This was a true coalition victory, this is the way we used to do it. We knew we had to do it this way this time, and we knew we had to win this on the ground and we did."
Michaelis said he was not only disappointed in the result, but also the lack of voting in the district in general.
"Im disappointed in the total turnout," he said. "Im distressed given the hard times that exist right now. There was a higher turnout four years ago."
Even with the results, he is proud to have made an impact.
"The responses we were getting from everybody were all incredibly positive," he said. "I dont think we could have done better than we did."
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