With all but a handful of ballots remaining to be counted county wide, it’s probably safe to say that most of the contested races and measures on the Nov. 3 general election ballot are for the most part, no longer contested.
On the West Plains that means another new face on the Airway Heights City Council, and a come from behind win for Jessica Roberts to replace retiring Councilman Art Kulibert on Medical Lake’s City Council Position 7.
After the first count Nov. 3, Roberts trailed challenger Don Kennedy by 22 votes, 296-274, with Kennedy receiving 51.03 percent of the vote. Not quite 24 hours later with the release of the second ballot count, Roberts had caught Kennedy and held a six ballot lead, 333-327, receiving 49.70 percent of the vote to Kennedy’s 48.81.
With the third count Thursday, Nov. 5, Roberts had increased her lead to 35 votes, receiving 51.56 percent of the vote and with the counting of an additional 6,096 ballots Monday, Nov. 9, held a 39 vote lead, 431-392.
In Airway Heights in the race for City Council Position 5, challenger Larry Bowman initially held an 11-vote lead over incumbent Jack Collins on Nov. 3. That dropped to eight votes with the Nov. 4 count, but since then has slowly increased, rising to 26 votes on Nov. 5 before finishing with an 18-vote lead after Nov. 9, receiving 50.16 percent of the vote.
In the only two other contested races on the West Plains, incumbent Henry C. Brown, Jr. has increased his election night percentage of votes from 59.60 percent to 61.98 percent in the race for the Cheney School District Director District 3 seat. In the race for the district’s Director District 5 seat, challenger Mitch Swenson was still comfortably ahead of incumbent James Whiteley, receiving 54.89 percent of the vote.
And in the race for Fire District 10 Commissioner Position 2, incumbent Ken Pegg was receiving 63.72 percent against challenger Susan Leonetti.
Also as of the Nov. 9 count, both public safety propositions in Airway Heights and Cheney were passing comfortably. Airway Heights Proposition 1 to provide emergency medical services was receiving 65.87 percent yes votes, a slight drop from the election night 66.40 percent.
Cheney’s Proposition 1 to do a one-time, but permanent levy lid lift to fund police and fire department personnel and equipment needs was passing by 59.28 percent, increasing from 58.73 on Nov. 3.
The next ballot count will take place Nov. 23. The election is scheduled to be certified Nov. 24.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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