It's Councilman Nygaard. Deal With It.

Sad news for those attempting to overturn the results of November’s local election: David Nygaard has already been sworn in as the councilman representing the Beach District.

A ceremonial swearing-in will be held at the first City Council meeting of 2019 on January 8th, but the deed has been done, he says.

So it’s Councilman Nygaard. Deal with it.

That means you, Rick Kowalewitch and you, too, John Uhrin, with your expensive lawsuits that resurrect an issue most of us believed was put to rest by the commonwealth's attorney months ago: Nygaard’s residency in the district.

One suit - courtesy of third-place finisher Kowalewitch, acting as his own attorney - asks the courts to order a new election with just two candidates permitted to run. He and Uhrin.

Yeah, right. 

The other - brought to you by the incumbent who couldn’t garner a plurality of the vote in a four-way race - wants Nygaard disqualified and the second-highest vote-getter installed as the winner.  Guess who that is?

Both suits are disturbing and a sign of our times when courtesy, decency and sportsmanship are of no consequence to the win-any-way-you-can crowd.

Whatever happened to losing gracefully? Whatever happened to candidates who left the political stage with their dignity intact?

That is not happening at the Beach this time where the pursuit of a $28K a year job is apparently worth squandering thousands of dollars on lawyers.

Nygaard says he assumes that no judge will disenfranchise nearly 50,000 voters - many in minority precincts - and is forging ahead with his agenda for his four-year term.

Yet he’s being forced to pay legal bills to fight these two cases and may find himself wasting untold hours in depositions.

“Is this what we want?” he asked Thursday afternoon. “Do we want losers with ample finances to bury winners in legal bills?”

I can answer that: No we don’t.