Traditionally, voter turnout is higher when there are important, contested races. But that wasn’t the case here, even though Rochelle City Council had a highly-contested race with six candidates running for three seats.
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ROCHELLE — Traditionally, voter turnout is higher when there are important, contested races. But that wasn’t the case here, even though Rochelle City Council had a highly-contested race with six candidates running for three seats.
The three with the highest number of votes were Kate Shaw-Dickey, Dan McDermott and Rosaleia Arteaga.
Shaw-Dickey, who had 419 votes, and McDermott, who brought in 333 votes, both are current sitting members of the council. Arteaga, a newcomer, garnered 341 votes and unseats incumbent Donald Burke, Jr., who had 215.
Another newcomer, Juan Martinez, Jr., also edged out Burke with 233 votes. Candidate Cassondra Losoya had 88 votes.
The City of Rochelle is under a city manager form of government, which means the day-to-day operations are done by the city manager’s office. In short, the city manager is the hired manager of the city who works outside of the political circle to keep operations running smoothly. The council is made up of elected citizens who represent the voters.
The city manager works closely with the mayor and council members to make certain all are informed of the operations and projects in the city.
Low count
Numbers were low for voter turnout, at one precinct just under 4 percent. The overall average for all of Flagg Township’s 11 precincts was at under 10 percent of those registered turning out to exercise their right to vote.
Library board
Also a contested race, the Flagg-Rochelle Public Library had six candidates running for four seats. In the end, Sheri Klindera lost her seat to newcomer Kelly Johnson, Klindera had 285 votes to Johnson’s 422.
Incumbents Jacqueline Dickow, Teresa Haggestad and Darci Waltrip were reelected with 481, 441 and 426 votes, respectively. Also running was Lisa Russell who garnered 328 votes.
Creston Clerk
In Creston there was an upset as longtime village clerk Deanna Haub was defeated by Jennifer Payton by seven votes. Haub was at 29 total votes while Payton had 36. Creston is in Dement Township which saw nearly 18 percent voter turnout, 92 of the 512 registered voters cast ballots.
Look for additional election coverage in the Sunday edition of the Rochelle News-Leader.
