By Ralph Echtinaw
The city council election results are in.
With a typically lackluster turnout of 11.71 percent, voters elected George Kubin (243 votes) and Elizabeth Upton (217) over Don Dean (110) for council person.
Running unopposed, current Councilman Tom Reed was elected mayor with 288 votes.
The number of voters casting absentee ballots (216) dwarfed the in-person voters (112). The total number of voters was 328.
St. Louis currently has 2,821 registered voters; 2,493 of whom didn’t vote in the city council election.
Upton will join the council in January. Kubin will continue to serve in the same position. Reed will replace James Kelly as mayor. Kelly is retiring from council.
Categories: Uncategorized
St. Louis Sentinel 
I find it very disheartening that time after time the turnout for our local elections is represented by a very small number of our registered voters. And worse that there are so few of our total St. Louis poulation that is eligible to register but don’t care enough to make it a priority.
Our locally elected officials are put in position by so few who actually care to vote, I often wonder it they actually represent the values of our greater population.
Furthermore, on off year elections like this one, how many pay attention enough to even know elections were even happening? It is our duty as citizens to vote on our prospective leaders, know there position on important matters, what they stand for (partisan or not) and understand ballot measures and issues that affect will affect us, good or bad.
It is also I believe, the duty of the candidates running for positions that shape our community, to put themselves out in front and show us citizens why it is that you are best suited for our community.
Don Dean is the only person I saw advertising that he was even running.
The City Hall publish who is running for a position but cannot aid in pointing to help information on cadidates or the issues when there are issues to vote on.
I welcome any comments. Good constructive debate will help us grow and find resolve. Degrading, bullying and trash talk and is childish. So be an adult about any conversation.
If any of my comments are wrong or missplaced, I would love to hear from our community and leaders.
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment, Jeremy. I’d like to add that Don Dean and Liz Upton didn’t attend even one city council meeting this year. Upton requested the endorsement of the Gratiot County Republican Party (of which I’m a member) but couldn’t find the time to attend one of our monthly meetings to introduce herself.
LikeLike