After weeks of campaigning, the City of Newburgh’s Democratic Primary took place on June 25, with voter turnout of over 1,000 people.

Both At-Large positions on Newburgh’s City Council were up for grabs during this election, as Councilwoman At-Large Hillary Rayford was not seeking re-election. However, the incumbent, Councilman Anthony Grice, sought to keep his seat.
Grice, along with Omari Shakur and Steven T. Majano, vied for one of the two available Democratic nominations for the two seats on City Council.

According to the unofficial primary results from the Orange County Board of Elections, 1,246 people came out to vote in Newburgh’s primary. Absentee ballots have not been counted yet.

Grice received most of the vote, coming in around 40 percent. Exactly 500 people in the City of Newburgh cast their ballots for Grice.

Shakur came in right behind Councilman Grice, earning almost 35% of the vote. He totaled at 432 votes.

Majano came in third, with receiving about 25 percent of votes. 308 people voted for him in the primary.
Grice and Shakur are the Democratic nominees for the City Council seats. The two men will be running against Independent Michele Basch in the General Election.

This is Shakur’s first “win” after running for multiple elected offices.

“The community felt like they won. It felt great,” he said. Shakur attributes his success this time around to his staff and community outreach. “We started doing community organizing. A lot of it was people joining in with me,” he explained.

Shakur plans to “[put] resolutions and proposals together [by] going forth with what the community wants.” He says that he still has to see what the City Council current plans are, before he comes up with anything concrete. “I work for [the community] starting in January,” he said.

Shakur is proposing to host two town halls before the general election in November, to gauge residents’ interests and what “they believe to [be] pertinent to the community,” he said.

He is interested in exploring opportunities for jobs and housing, two things that he thinks are most needed in the City of Newburgh. He is dedicated to figuring out how “to make affordable pathways for home ownership, [especially] for first time ownership,” he added.