Bartlett, Farris Elected to Commission; Third Seat Too Close to Call

There will be at least two new city commissioners when new representatives are sworn in during the Dec. 2 commission meeting.

Abby Bartlett and J. David Farris were the runaway top vote getters during Tuesday’s municipal election, and each will get four-year terms on the City Commission. Meanwhile, the third open seat – a two-year term – is too close to call as four votes separate challenger Lisa Moody and incumbent Charlie Perdue with provisional ballots and last-minute mail-ins pending.

Bartlett led all candidates with 803 votes, and Farris tallied 719. Moody currently sits in third-place with 622 votes, and Perdue has 618. There are 27 provisional ballots for consideration during the canvassing, which is scheduled to take place on Nov. 18.

There is also the potential for more votes coming in, as voters with mail-in ballots had until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to have the ballots post-marked. Those ballots have a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8, where they must be received by the County Clerk’s Office to be accepted.

With all precincts reporting and advance voting tallies calculated, current Commissioner David Hausmann sat in fifth place with 530 votes, with Luke Jesnowski in sixth with 417 votes. Former City Commissioner Bill Murphy received 409 votes.

“Voter turnout was impressive, considering there wasn’t a state or national race on the ballot,” City Manager Becky Berger said. “The energy in our community is exciting, I’m really happy with the trending increase in our citizens’ participation in local government.”

For comparison, in the 2017 city election the top vote earner had 690 votes. In that election the third-place candidate received 478 votes.

In 2015, it took 600 votes to be the top vote getter. The third-place candidate in that election received 464 votes.