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Maroun wins Tupper mayor race

Tupper Lake village Mayor Paul Maroun inspects absentee ballot envelopes in the Franklin County Board of Elections office on Monday before they were opened and secured his reelection by a 16-vote margin. The board allows candidates to inspect the mail-in ballot envelopes for irregularities which would invalidate them. Maroun found none. “If I didn’t do, this you’d wonder why I came all the way down here,” he said. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

MALONE — Paul Maroun has won reelection as mayor of Tupper Lake against challenger Eric Shaheen by a margin of 16 votes, unofficial results from the Franklin County Board of Elections show.

The two candidates ended election night on Nov. 2 tied, with exactly 371 votes apiece.

On Monday, the BOE opened 47 absentee and affidavit ballots in its Malone office. Maroun was there to watch. Democratic Commissioner Brandon John Varin read out the totals — 31 votes for Maroun, who ran on the Independence Party line, and 15 for Shaheen, who ran on the Republican and Conservative party lines. There was one write-in vote.

Maroun said he’d spent the last two weeks contemplating the possibility of a loss. He breathed a sigh of relief, and several others in the packed room, in the basement of the county courthouse, congratulated him.

This leaves the unofficial vote totals at 402 votes for Maroun and 386 for Shaheen.

Varin said the totals are still unofficial because the race came within 20 votes. That triggers a mandatory hand count of the ballots.

Republican Election Commissioner Tracy Sparks said they’ll count these ballots by hand after all the rest of the county’s absentee ballots are accounted for — likely later this week. But Varin said the totals are unlikely to change. He said the only reason would be if a ballot was invalidated for errant markings, which they checked for before they ran the ballots through a counting machine.

One of the ballots couldn’t be read by the machine. Varin said this was because of the way it was folded. This ballot will be counted by hand with the rest, but wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

Shaheen, a local contractor, was seeking to bring change to the village. He said on election night that if he didn’t win he still had a business to run and family to support.

Maroun was glad he won and thanked the voters who voted for him. He said he wants to keep Tupper Lake on the course he’s set in 11 years as its mayor.

There’s a lot the village has on its plate now. The fate of the Big Tupper Ski Area is in limbo, but there’s possible paths forward being discussed. There’s a housing crunch as people move into the area or buy second homes during the pandemic. Rising prices of goods and labor, in part because of the pandemic, have caused village expenses to rise. There are ongoing water quality issues with the village’s new wells. And the coronavirus, including the highly-contagious delta variant, is spreading faster than ever in this area.

Maroun also needs to appoint a new village board member soon, as Trustee Clint Hollingsworth resigned to take a position as town supervisor.

This is a breaking news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.

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