Eldora election results in

ELDORA – Rightly or wrongly there has grown a perception Eldora town politics belonged to a couple of political factions. 

But the election of 2017 pretty well scattered those notions. Instead, the city vote became about individual candidates,  newcomers and incumbents, and generally the incumbents lost. 

Council member Melody Hoy proved the one exception, retaining her post, the second highest vote getter. But it was Aaron Budweg who proved far and away the big winner at the polls. Another newcomer, Greg Priske  also took a seat on the council, effectively besting incumbent Cindy Johns, besting incumbent mayor (running for council) Bob Jeske, and outpolling incumbent council member Jack Brekke.  

Johns came close but up short in the race for three at large council seats. She was just 11 votes behind Preiske. 

Meanwhile, in the mayors race, a new face was guaranteed. Both the new mayor-elect Dave Dunn and challenger Mike May were running for office for the first time.

Dunn won by a wide margin, 417 votes to 201.

  The city ambulance service emerged as  the one overriding issue of the campaign – contentious even though all the candidates insisted they wanted the service preserved and growing. All agreed on the need to find a larger headquarters. There was even said to be common ground about making the new home in what will soon be the vacated city fire station.

But, in the last days of the campaign, a couple of candidates accused a couple others of trying to sow fear over the issue.  In response the one of the others claimed his opponents were being disingenuous about their support for the service. 

As it happened, the medical field would be well represented in the election field. Four of the candidates for city council worked in everything from pharmacy, to medical equipment consulting, to nursing, to emergency medical service team member.

In any case, the voter encountered a whole array of new and old faces when stepping into the voting booth.

Check inside for a graphic on the vote breakdown in the Eldora voting. 

And in another note, even as the polls were closing, the city council was announcing that one of its members, Dave Mitchell, had been hired as the new Eldora city manager.  That means his post on the council will have to come open and the city will be left to decide on appointing someone to fill the unexpired portion of Mitchell’s term or calling a special election. (Read more in the Friday Index)