Today Peter Yacobellis will officially be declared the winner of last week’s town council election in Montclair, Essex County.

Councilman-elect Yacobellis won with 5,472 votes.

If the tally holds, that’s the most votes ever received by any candidate running for any office in Montclair history, he added.

Yacobellis’ record-setting win was a great result for NJ’s LGBTQ community, historically underrepresented in halls of power in NJ politics.

“I was 18 years old when Ellen DeGeneres came out,” Yacobellis told InsiderNJ. “I had never heard of Harvey Milk when I was a kid and I didn’t truly understand what being gay meant until late in my teen years. There certainly were no prominent openly LGBTQ elected officials in my youth either.”

Yacobellis swears in on July 1st. Meantime, he’s savor his win and some nice feedback too.

“Today, mothers are writing me notes thanking me for being out and open in my run because of the example it gives to their children. What a beautiful evolution,” Yacobellis told InsiderNJ.