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The status quo largely prevailed Tuesday in municipal elections in four Clayton County hamlets with blank ballots. Write-in voters returned mayors to office in Elkport, Garber and Osterdock. In Millville, six write-in voters lightly shuffled the deck, with the mayor and a council member switching places. “I didn’t really want it, but someone has to do it,” said Gerald Kinnicker, 69, a 12-year City Council veteran who was elected mayor of Millville with four write-in votes. Kinnicker replaces Jim Hankes, who was ...

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A recount Wednesday afternoon overturned the results of one Palo City Council election. Incumbent Al Mengler was the unofficial winner Wednesday morning, with 98 votes to Tom Sanders’ 78. But Sanders’ write-in campaign had been shortchanged by an equipment glitch or an error by precinct officials. Some write-in ballots were mixed in with regular ones and weren’t counted for Sanders. When the Linn County Auditor’s Office recounted the write-in votes, Sanders received 33 more, bringing his total to 116 (including absentees). “Tom Sanders ...

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A quick recount Wednesday afternoon overturned the results of one Palo city council race. "Tom Sanders is now the unofficial winner," said Tim Box, Linn County deputy commissioner of elections. The Auditor's Office conducted a recount of write-in votes cast in the Palo city council election after election officials found the number of hand-tallied write-in votes didn't match the number of write-in ballots recorded by the computers. Incumbent Al Mengler was the unofficial winner, with 98 votes to Sanders' 78. But Sanders' write-in ...

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Ron Corbett has defeated City Council incumbent Brian Fagan to become the city’s next mayor, according to tallies coming in to the Linn County election office. Corbett won 14,642 votes, or 62.3 percent of the 23,488 votes cast. Fagan won 8,385 votes, for 35.7 percent of the total. A third candidate, P.T. Larson, won 421 votes, for 1.8 percent. The turnout was 27 percent, with 23,510 voting. Some 87,189 voters are registered in Cedar Rapids. Campaigning since March, Corbett, 49, vice president at trucking firm ...

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Chuck Swore will return to the City Council after a two-year hiatus, and incumbent Kris Gulick easily won re-election to his district seat. But four candidates are now headed for Dec. 1 runoffs. One runoff is in District 3 with council incumbents Pat Shey and Jerry McGrane facing each other. The other runoff will have Aaron Saylor and Don Karr vying for one of the two at-large council seats. Under the city’s charter, runoffs are required if candidates don’t reach a ...

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The Iowa City Council will have two new members and retain a longtime colleague. Amid dismal voter turnout, at-large candidates Susan Mims and Terry Dickens and District B three-term incumbent Connie Champion were elected to the seven-member council Tuesday. The new council will be seated in January and get to work right away on what is expected to be a tight budget as the city struggles through the recession. The search for a new city manager and public safety concerns, particularly violence on ...

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Winners Business Leaders – Winning mayoral candidate Ron Corbett gave his opponents the business Tuesday with the help of strong backing from business leaders. Corbett tapped their anger over the pace of city hall decision making. Now Corbett has to deliver on his promises to end the “culture of delay.” Fast. Unions – Corbett celebrated his victory Tuesday night in a union hall and had plenty of labor backing. Some nice political bridge-building for the former Republican House speaker. But unions will now ...

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The doors at Oakland Church of the Nazarene are getting a workout today as voters make their picks. About 560 people had cast ballots as of 2 p.m., surprising the poll workers. A line of about 20 people had formed when the polls opened this morning. "There hasn't been a lull of more than about 30 seconds," precinct 23 chairwoman Dorothy Evans said. "We think, 'Oh it's empty in here,' and bingo, four or five come in." The church, at 3000 42nd St. ...

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More decisions equals more voters in Cedar Rapids so far today. As of 11 a.m., 6,628 people had voted in the city election, according to the Linn County Auditor’s Office. That’s well ahead of the 2,799 people that had voted in the first four hours of the last city election in 2007. There are six races this year, including one for mayor, compared to three races on the 2007 ballot. The totals do not include absentee ballots. The 11 a.m. total represented 7.6 ...

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Jacob Willmott voted for the first time in his life Tuesday, and trained a future voter, too. Willmott, 29, of Cedar Rapids, had his young step-son Isaiah along as he made his selections at Taylor School this morning. When they were done, Willmott got down on one knee and patted an election sticker on Isaiah's coat. "I just had to show him how it's done," Willmott said. Willmott said he was motivated to vote because of his desire for change. He favored Ron ...

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Get out your calculators. It may be a bit of a challenge tonight to figure out who wins the two at-large City Council seats in today’s election in Cedar Rapids. Five candidates are running for the two seats. To win, a candidate must receive at least 25 percent of the vote (plus one vote). If more than two candidates surpass that level, the top two vote-getters win. But if just one candidate surpasses that 25 percent level, a runoff election will be held ...

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In the run-up to the 2007 Iowa City municipal election, voter registration among the community’s student-age population increased by 4,500. This year, it’s declining, reports the Johnson County Auditor’s Office. In the primary, only 11 people voted at the University of Iowa Main Library and 25 at Quadrangle residence hall. “I certainly was expecting more interest among students,” said Jeff Shipley, one of two UI students seeking seats on the Iowa City Council. “Perhaps it’s my failure as an uninspiring, unorganized candidate, but ...

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Gazette columnists Todd Dorman and Jennifer Hemmingsen took questions today regarding Tuesday's municipal elections in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Check out a replay of their live chat below to see what they, and chat readers, had to say.

Greg Eyerly, the Cedar Rapids flood-recovery director, jumped into the Ellis Park Pool last Wednesday to celebrate the completion of renovations at the flood-damaged city facility. The splash on a cold day tells a piece of the story voters must sort out as they prepare to go to the polls in Tuesday’s city election. Mayoral candidate Brian Fagan, an at-large City Council member who was the city’s central face for flood recovery in the first months after the June 2008 flood, has ...

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A Gazette Communications poll finds that Ron Corbett has an eight point edge on Brian Fagan heading into Tuesday’s mayoral vote. Of 404 likely voters, 42 percent said they would vote for Corbett, 34 percent said they would vote for Fagan and 1 percent said they would vote for the third candidate in the race, P.T. Larson. Neither of the leading mayoral candidates appears to be a sure winner, however. Results show 24 percent had not decided or did not answer the ...

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In the final mayoral forum of the 2009 campaign, candidate Ron Corbett said Friday, if elected, he will ask the City Council to put City Manager Jim Prosser under a 90-day assessment “to see how he performs.” Corbett’s chief opponent, Brian Fagan, called Prosser a city employee who, like every city employee, must meet certain expectations. Fagan, an at-large City Council member, said he wants to see Prosser do more to fix city streets and to better enforce the city’s building ...

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In the final mayoral forum of the 2009 campaign, candidate Ron Corbett said Friday, if elected, he will ask the City Council to put City Manager Jim Prosser under a 90-day assessment “to see how he performs.” Corbett’s chief opponent, Brian Fagan, called Prosser a city employee who, like every city employee, must meet certain expectations. Fagan, an at-large City Council member, said he wants to see Prosser do more to fix city streets and to better enforce the city’s building ...

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For nearly all the stars on this fall’s football fields, the stardom will come and it will go. It always has. And then what? All three of Cedar Rapids’ mayoral candidates — Brian Fagan, Ron Corbett and P.T. Larson — achieved note as young football players, and here they are now, running toward a Nov. 3 election day, hoping to lead the second biggest city in Iowa. One measure of comfort: None of the three has erected a shrine of past football ...

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Ron Corbett has raised $101,072 in mayoral campaign contributions and Brian Fagan, $35,099, with each candidate saying his fundraising approach is the right one. P.T. Larson, a third mayoral candidate on the Nov. 3 ballot, has not needed to file a financial disclosure report with the state’s Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board because he has not raised more than $750 in the race. Corbett, 49, vice president at trucking firm CRST Inc., said Thursday that his ability to raise $100,000 in campaign ...

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Ron Corbett has raised $101,072 in mayoral campaign contributions and Brian Fagan, $35,099, with each candidate saying his fundraising approach is the right one. P.T. Larson, a third mayoral candidate on the Nov. 3 ballot, has not needed to file a financial disclosure report with the state’s Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board because he has raised more than $750 in the race. Corbett, 49, vice president at trucking firm CRST Inc., said Thursday that his ability to raise $100,000 in campaign contributions ...

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The Hawkeye Labor Council endorsed Ron Corbett for Cedar Rapids mayor Tuesday. Corbett was a seven-term Republican member of the Iowa House of Representatives. He served as speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999, when he resigned to become president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. He more recently has served as vice president of CRST Inc., a large Cedar Rapids trucking company. The council rarely endorses Republicans, but the council’s board liked what Corbett had to say about ...

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