WI Wasicsko Won 1989 Reelection in Yonkers

Watching Show Me a Hero on HBO, wanted to ask: What if Mayor Nick Wasicsko had gotten a few more votes in his bid for a second term? To start, would he become a rising star in the Democratic Party? Would the situation in Yonkers play out differently?
 
Watching Show Me a Hero on HBO, wanted to ask: What if Mayor Nick Wasicsko had gotten a few more votes in his bid for a second term? To start, would he become a rising star in the Democratic Party? Would the situation in Yonkers play out differently?

This one's very close to home. I lived in Yonkers at the time, went to John Jay College when Nick taught there, and worked on his 1991 City Council campaign. His father-in-law was also in my Army reserve company, and we did a couple of call-ups together. So hearing his name brings back memories.

Anyway, the 1989 election wasn't close - Nick lost by more than 4000 votes. The anger over the desegregation plan was huge, and even many people who were indifferent about the desegregation thought that Judge Sand (who put four members of the city council in jail for contempt) was acting like the city's dictator. For Nick to be identified with that was poison, even though what he did was the right thing for the city.

To keep him in office, I think changing one vote would be easier than changing 2200 - in particular, one of the holdout city council members listening to legal advice and voting in favor of the desegregation plan. That way it would have passed 4-3 rather than failing 4-3, and the spectacle of the standoff with Judge Sand and the contempt orders would not have happened. By 1989, with the plan a done deal, passions might have cooled enough to get Nick a second term.

If so, then I could certainly see him moving up - his decision not to fight the desegregation order got a lot of attention in state Democratic circles, and he might eventually have been nominated for a vacant Assembly seat and then moved on to Congress or to statewide office. If the mayor of freakin' Peekskill could become governor, then Nick certainly could have done it. On the other hand, there were rumors that he was being investigated for corruption when he killed himself in 1993, and if there was any truth to that (which I don't know), his career might have gone down in flames. Also, he was very much a Yonkers guy, and I'm not sure how comfortable he would have been in Albany or how comfortable upstate voters would have been with him.

I like to think he would have had a bright future, and I would have liked to see it - I did consider him a friend.
 
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