Update: Tony Staskunas Wins County Board Supervisor Seat

Updated 11:40 a.m. April 3

Veteran politician Tony Staskunas of West Allis has unofficially defeated entertainer and small business owner Tom Anthony of Greenfield in the race for the 17th District Milwaukee County Board Supervisor seat.

Staskunas, 52, unofficially received 50 percent of the vote for a position whose constituents reside in four municipalities: Greenfield, Greendale, West Allis and Franklin.

Staskunas tallied 4,452 votes to Anthony's 4,285. Some outstanding absentee ballots remain and could chip away at Staskunas' 167-vote lead.

Staskunas, an attorney, has been in political office since 1988 when he was elected as alderman of West Allis, a position he held until 1997. He was then elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly 15th District and served from 1997 to 2013, when he decided not to run for re-election.

Anthony, the manager of a printing service company for 20 years, a small business owner and the lead singer for the Tom Anthony Group, has no political experience.

"I am so very grateful to all who supported me and who took the time to share their concerns with me regarding their community," Anthony said in an email to Patch. "It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to have the opportunity run for public office."

Both candidates said they’d be advocates for County Board reform. 

“That’s the number one structural issue facing the County Board and Milwaukee County right now,” Staskunas said. “But there are a lot of ongoing issues and concerns. It’s going to be a learning curve of what’s going on that I’ll have to get involved in. But certainly, County Board reform is at the forefront.”

Staskunas said he intends to use his connections in Madison to help crack down on drunken driving in the county and hopes to work with Sheriff David Clarke on new drunken driving measures. He also hopes to use his experiences of working with people of differing opinions to mend relationships between the County Board and County Executive Chris Abele.

"The County Board right now, seems to be getting along better than when Mr. (Lee) Holloway was the chairman,” he said. “But the relationship between the Board and the County Executive is really bad right now. I hope I’ll be able to bridge that gap with the executive branch. The constant bickering that goes on between them in the media doesn’t do any good.”

It's that very bickering and inability to work together that led Staskunas out of Madison, he said.

“I had a great run of 16 years,” he said. “The building changed very dramatically the last two years. It was always political, and that’s fine; it’s a political job. But you could at least work with the parties. The last two years totally soured the ability to work together. I made my mark in Madison working with people trying to draw things together and get results. That’s not the direction we were going.”

The candidates squared off in Tuesday’s special election to replace Joe Sanfelippo, who left the board after winning a State Assembly seat in the 15th District in the November election. Sanfelippo, coincidently, replaced Staskunas in the State Assembly.

In the primary in February, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Anthony finished with 2,233 votes, or 46 percent, compared to Staskunas’ 2,107, or 44 percent.

Staskunas said Al Singer, who was eliminated in the primary, endorsed him, and he was able to cover more ground campaigning between the primary and general election.

“I hopefully got some of (Singer’s) votes,” Staskunas said. “Also, I didn’t campaign at all in Franklin before the primary. I didn’t set one foot in Franklin. Between the primary and general, I rang a lot of doorbells in Franklin and Greenfield, and I gained some ground in both places."