| East Carbon resident Priscilla Kiddy receives a city ballot from the election judge Louise Roybal on Tuesday. When the 2005 polls closed Nov. 8, East Carbon voters had squelched Mayor Dale Andrews’ bid for re-election and cast ballots in support of challenger Orlando LaFontaine. Incumbent Joe Piccolo will lead Price city for another term in elected office, while Mike Dalpiaz will occupy the mayor’s position in Helper. |
Based on the result of Tuesday’s local elections, two new mayors will be assuming duties in towns in Carbon County in January.
In addition, local voters selected several new faces in the 2005 city council races.
One election night surprise came from East Carbon, where incumbent Mayor Dale Andrews was ousted from elected office by challenger Orlando LaFontaine.
LaFontaine defeated Andrews 253 to 236. Andrews has been serving as the mayor of East Carbon City since the late 1990s. .
In Helper, the mayor’s race was close when the Nov. 8 election polls closed.
When the election votes were counted, Mike Dalpiaz defeated Chuck Buchanan 341 to 307.
Neither candidate was an incumbent, but Dalpiaz served as Helper’s mayor in the past.
In Price, incumbent Joe Piccolo will continue as mayor of the largest town in the county for four years.
Piccolo defeated Price Councilmember Betty Wheeler 1,006 to 845.
In addition to selecting mayoral candidates, local voters decided several city council races at the Nov. 8 polls.
In Price, two four-year seats and one two-year position on the city council were up for grabs.
Kathy Hanna Smith outdistanced a field of four candidates with 1,105 votes.
Incumbent Councilmember Jeanne McEvoy took second with 927 votes.
Smith and McElvoy will occupy the two-four year seats on the Price council.
Contender Rick Davis had 673 votes, while John Kit Pappas earned 647 ballots.
In the two-year Price City Council race, Jeff Nielson took the seat by beating Edwin Shook 1,039 to 776.
In Helper, city council candidate Dean Armstrong took the most votes with 450. John Jones came in second with 367 ballots.
Armstrong and Jones will take the Helper City Council seats in January.
Contender Jeremy Lamph garnered 264 votes in the Helper City Council race and Gene Carlson ended up with 170 ballots.
East Carbon also had a council race for two seats and the incumbents were re-elected to fill the positions.
Joyce Caviness garnered the most votes with 344, while Darlene Kuhns earned 253 ballots.
The two challengers in the East Carbon City Council races were Verl D. Holt, who had 179 votes, and Lloyd E. Lowe Sr., who had 119.
In the only race held in the unincorporated county, Keith Cox held onto his seat at the Price River Water Improvement District by beating three other contenders by garnering almost as many votes as all of the others put together. Cox won with 237 votes. Rex Sacco took second with 130, while Kerry Krompel had 112 people vote for him. Robert Martin had four votes.
At Sunnyside, while there were two four year and one two year council seat available, the four year seats were the only ones in contention. In that vote Tony Riffle and Doug Parsons won the seats with 37 and 27 votes respectively. Nick DeGuilio took the two year seat unopposed. The incumbent mayor, Bruce Andrews, was also unopposed as well.
In Wellington neither the mayor, nor the two incumbent councilmen were opposed. Karl Houskeeper, the mayor received 92 votes while the councilmen, Ed Chavez, Jr. and Johnny Pappas received 89 and 81 votes respectively.
Overall the turnout for the election was poor. East Carbon had the highest turnout with 490 of the 985 registered voters coming to the polls(49.75 percent). The lowest turnout was in Wellington where less than 9 percent of the registered voters showed up. Helper City had about 39 percent of its registered voters cast ballots while Price ended up with almost 33 percent.