Haines Borough voters on Tuesday elected residents Ron Jackson and Mike Case to the assembly and chose Jan Hill for the mayor’s seat, according to unofficial results.
Voters also approved bonding for $1.7 million in mechanical upgrades to the school’s vocational education building and $412,000 for replacement of the high school’s air handling units.
A proposition to eliminate from borough charter the “40-percent rule” for seating candidates also passed.
Voters rejected a proposition to bond for $1.8 million for replacement of the high school roof.
There are still a maximum of 56 questioned, personal representative, absentee by fax and absentee by mail ballots that could be counted, said clerk Julie Cozzi.
The election canvass is Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the assembly chambers.
Voter turnout was 45 percent – the same as 2013 – with 1,007 ballots cast of 2,226 registered voters.
Hill received 475 votes, while Scott received 355, meaning 181 people who showed up and cast a ballot didn’t vote for either mayoral candidate.
“I got fired,” Scott said in an interview Wednesday. “I was a disappointment to folks for a variety of reasons. There appears to be a mismatch between my skills and the performance that the community wanted in the mayor’s office.”
Scott said she understood some people were disappointed by her tie-breaker voting record and her eagerness to get involved in many issues.
“I was unable to compromise my own work ethic and principles to change my behavior,” Scott said. “I wasn’t running anybody’s agenda. I think I probably disappointed a lot of people because I was neither conservative nor liberal, and I took each situation as it was presented and did my best to contextualize it and think about the issues that were driving the situation and how they impacted the entire community.”
Scott said she “can’t imagine running again.”
Hill said she was surprised at beating Scott by such a wide margin.
“It’s a pretty good margin for a Haines election,” she said. “Because I have lived here forever I expected it to be closer, because most of the time they are.”
Hill attributed her win to active campaigning and advertising. “Apparently people were ready for change,” she said.
Reaching out to younger residents also paid off. “I spoke with a lot of our younger people in the 20-30 (age) group. Some weren’t even registered to vote. Some were but didn’t vote much. I seem to have a rapport with that group of kids. I encouraged them to register and participate,” Hill said.
Assembly candidate Jackson won 516 votes and Case garnered 428. While Jackson is a clear winner, Case is a mathematical likelihood, as he led third-place candidate Mario Benassi by 53 votes with a maximum of 56 still left to count at the canvassing.
Benassi, with 375 votes, said he isn’t holding out hope. “It’s not going to happen,” he said.
“I’m disappointed, of course, but I feel like (Jackson) is a good guy, and if we had to go with one of the conservatives, I guess Mike Case was probably the best one. Better than Jerry Erny. There was just no compassion in that guy,” Benassi said.
In hindsight, Benassi said he should have campaigned more and gotten out to talk to more people. Candidate Parnell also likely drew votes away from him, Benassi said.
“(Parnell) throwing his hat in the ring split the vote. I believe that I would have gotten those votes. I truly believe that, and I actually think that had (Parnell) not run, we would have gotten two progressives on the assembly instead of just one,” Benassi said.
Parnell, when asked if he would have done anything differently, said he wouldn’t have bothered running. “It was a waste of my time,” he said. Parnell received 181 votes.
“I would have voted for me,” Parnell added. “I guess people don’t like open gym in Haines.”
Jackson, like Hill, said he was also surprised by his wide margin of victory.
A strong advertising campaign helped inform voters of Jackson’s character traits, experience and vision for the town. “I let people know who I am. I think I was a little bit of an unknown for a while there,” he said.
While Case is almost certainly the winner of the second assembly seat, he said he didn’t do as well as expected. “I thought I was going to do better because everybody knows me,” Case said.
Erny, who received 361 votes, said while he was “certainly disappointed” at not being elected, he probably wouldn’t have done anything differently.
“I’m happy for those guys that won,” Erny said. “I’m sure they’ll do a great job and I congratulate them.”
A proposition eliminating a clause in the borough charter requiring candidates to receive 40 percent of the vote in order to be seated passed by 57 percent.
A proposition for bonding $1.7 million to pay for mechanical upgrades to the school’s vocational education building passed with 59 percent of votes. Bonding for $412,000 for replacement of the high school air handling units passed with 62 percent support.
The roof replacement proposition failed with 56 percent opposed to bonding for the $1.8 million project.
The three school capital improvement projects were all approved for 70 percent reimbursement funding from the Department of Education and Early Development. The air handling unit project is already complete, but passage of the bond will allow the borough to be reimbursed for part of the cost.
Unopposed school board candidates Anne Marie Palmieri and Brian Clay were both re-elected. A third school board member will be appointed at a board meeting set for 7 p.m. Oct. 29. Letters of interest should be submitted to the school.
A malfunction in a voting machine at the townsite precinct caused an brief election glitch when the machine stopped accepting ballots. The problem was fixed by turning off the machine and turning it on again, said election official Cozzi.