The last time there was an election for the Village Board of Bloomingburg, N.Y., 24 residents came out to vote. On Tuesday, more than 330 did, roughly two-thirds of the population of the small rustic spot in Sullivan County.
At issue was the very character of the place: Would it keep its small-town feel or become more like Kiryas Joel, a village of 20,000 people farther south populated largely by Hasidim of the Satmar sect?
Voters who wanted to keep the village small outnumbered those supporting development by a ratio of three to one, but the results are far from definitive. They do not include 230 voters, many of them Hasidim who settled only this year, whose residencies were challenged.