Mike Wright, with 35% of the vote, held his ground and won one of the two at-large seats on the Iowa City Council in a tough race over challenger Terry Smith and incumbent Dee Vanderhoef. Matt Hayek, as expected, won the other seat with 60% of the vote. Regenia Bailey and Ross Wilburn, who won the most votes of any candidate running unopposed, will both return to council for another term.
In an unusual turn of events story, the 21-only bar referendum failed as absentee ballots which had not been counted when all the polls had closed, were added up. The tipping point came after the last city precinct to report, City High, toppled the race to the "Yes" side by about 200 votes, after the "No" vote led all evening. At 9:50, the auditors office reported the margin had shifted dramatically back to the "no" side by a count of 8895 to 6,606.
The citizen's referendum to have a permanent Citizen Police Review Board passed handily with over 72% of the vote. The overall turnout was the highest since 2005 with 34% of voters turning out.
In Coralville, despite an underhanded whisper campaign aimed to sway and intimidate potential voters launched by a local Realtor within days of the election, Mitch Gross was elected to the city council there by a 39% margin replacing incumbent Jean Newlin Schnake. Mayor Jim Fausett was re-elected handily.
Finally, in North Liberty, incumbent council member James Moody was defeated for re-election by the triumvirate of Coleen Chipman, Jack Donahue, and Chris Hoffman. A hotel/motel tax referendum was also passed by a wide margin.
No comments:
Post a Comment