On a school board with a unified slate of incumbents, a newcomer led the pack in the race for Pittston Area Board of Education, according to preliminary results Luzerne County published Tuesday.
With all precincts reporting, Marissa Chiumento won a seat on the Pittston Area school board with a strong first place finish. Chiumento collected 5,857 total votes, leading her nearest competitor by a margin of 381 ballots.
A clinical pharmacist for Geisinger in its endocrinology department and the owner of a local entertainment company, Chiumento won nominations to both the Democratic and Republican party tickets. During her campaign, Chiumento said she has noticed a trend of families choosing to send their children to private schools over public-school education and said she felt it was important that Pittston Area work to ensure student career readiness and overall wellbeing.
Marissa Chiumento (Natasha T. Photography)
Incumbent Pittston Area school board members John Adonizio, Katherine Healey, and Marty Quinn secured the next three highest vote totals, with 5,476, 5,397, and 4,835 votes, respectively. Both Adonizio and Healey had won nominations to both the Democratic and Republican party tickets. Quinn, a Pittston Area school board member of approximately 35 years and the namesake of a school in the district, won only a place on the Democratic ticket, a likely cause in his lower result. (The top four finishers ended with a place on the school board.)
Marty Quinn (CHRISTOPHER DOYLE/STAFF PHOTO)
Healey, a health and physical education teacher at Hanover Area School District, highlighted her teaching experience during the campaign.
“I’ve walked in our students’ shoes, and I continue to walk beside them every day,” Healey said Sunday on Facebook. “I’m the only candidate who has been in the classroom for the past 20 years — teaching every type of class…”
Katherine Healey (courtesy of Katherine Healey)
Pittston Area school board member Matt Marriggi finished last among all the candidates with 3,531 votes, appearing to lose his bid for reelection. Marriggi won a Republican nomination to the school board in the primary. As seemed to be the case for Republican nominees across Luzerne County, Marriggi fell behind badly with the mail-in tally, where he trailed all other candidates in the race by more than 1,000 votes.
The loss for Marriggi marks a loss for the “Pittston Area Visionary Team,” a political group that was promoting Adonizio, Marriggi , and Quinn as members of a unified “Pittston Area Visionary” ticket.
There was a second school board race in Pittston Area, with school board member Tom Cotter running against challenger Art Bobbouine. Because a panel of county judges rejected the Luzerne County Democratic Committee’s attempt to nominate a candidate, there are no named candidates running on any major-party ticket for the seat.
Cotter, whom the sitting Pittston Area school board appointed to temporarily fill the vacancy, was running a write-in campaign with the Pittston Area Visionary Team’s endorsement. Bobbouine, former chief deputy sheriff at the Luzerne County Sheriff’s Office and is now a constable and security-company owner, had endorsed Healey, a candidate left off the Pittston Area Visionary Team ticket.
As the Luzerne County totals had not yet tallied individual write-in totals, it was not clear whether Bobbouine, Cotter, or a third candidate was leading on election night.
The results are preliminary and uncertified. They could be subject to change as provisional ballots or ballots otherwise not yet canvassed are taken into account.