November 4 City/School Election returns incumbents to seats in contested races; Cassie Cahoon elected to open Ward 3 seat on Waukon City Council
With very few contested races and no public measures to decide upon, the Tuesday, November 4 City/School Election to determine which candidates would be elected by voters to leadership positions at the most local levels of government and guidance yielded just over a 10% voter turnout in Allamakee County. Out of the six locally-governed communities and three school districts within Allamakee County, there were just five contested races on this year’s ballots, and the four of those five races that had incumbent candidates seeking re-election ended up returning all of those incumbents to their seats, according to unofficial results released by the Allamakee County Commissioner of Elections office shortly after polls closed the night of the election.
CITY GOVERNMENT
There were five mayor seats up for election within the six Allamakee County communities featuring a city government system, with Lansing being the only community where the mayor’s office was not on this year’s ballot. The city of Postville had no declared candidate for mayor on its election ballot, but, despite not formally seeking re-election, current mayor Dennis Koenig was still the election winner by receiving the most write-in votes.
The only mayoral seat being contested in this year’s election was in Waterville, where incumbent mayor Dave Monserud won re-election by receiving 26 votes in comparison to the nine votes received by challenger Jason Bollman. Otherwise, the other three mayors on this year’s ballot all won re-election in their unopposed bids, including Waukon Mayor Arvid Hatlan (205 out of 230 votes cast), New Albin Mayor Tom Feuerhelm (70 of 74 votes cast) and Harpers Ferry Mayor Jerry Valley (50 of 58 votes cast).
Two contested city council races on this year’s ballot included two at-large seats on the Harpers Ferry City Council being pursued by three candidates. Incumbents Alan Garin (53 votes) and Kenneth Barta (48 votes) each retained their seats over challenger Larry Darling and his 19 votes.
The Waukon City Council had one contested seat in Ward 3, where current councilmember Dave Blocker did not seek re-election and two new candidates pursued this seat. In that race, Cassie Cahoon won the seat with her 74 votes over Cole Spain’s 37 votes. There were also two other Waukon City Council seats on this year’s ballot being pursued by incumbent candidates unopposed, including in Ward 1 where Steve Wiedner received 71 of 75 votes cast and At-Large councilman Tim Smedsrud also retaining his seat with 243 of the 247 votes cast in that race.
The city of Lansing had three at-large city council seats on this year’s ballot, with all of them being pursued by current incumbent candidates Stan Schwartzhoff, Mike Manning and Steve Murray, who were all running unopposed. Schwartzhoff received 100 votes, Murray had 88 votes cast for him, and Manning received 83 votes, with each of them retaining their seats.
In addition to the Lansing City Council, the communities of New Albin, Waterville and Postville all had the same number of candidates as the number of council seats up for election on this year’s ballot, with all of those council positions being At-Large seats. New Albin had incumbent George Blair (45 votes) and newcomer Michael R. Mitchell (65 votes) each elected to those two council seats. Postville had two incumbents seeking re-election to their council seats, with Mary Engstrom (159 votes) and Rebecca Engelhardt (157 votes) each being re-elected.
The Waterville City Council had all five of its seats up for election and an equal number of five candidates listed on the ballot. Incumbents Robbie Burrett (28 votes), Bethany Dundee (30 votes) and David J. Christianson (29 votes) were all joined by newcomers Joe Weipert (27 votes) and Kayla VanderKolk (32 votes) in each being elected to one of those council seats.
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