Preliminary votes tallied by the city of Cordova on March 4 show that there will likely be decent turnover in municipal government, as well as on the school board.
In the mayor’s race, Kristin Smith led her opponent Jason Barnes by more than double – 518 votes to his 187.
In the other top municipal race, five candidates competed for three open City Council seats. The trio in the lead is Mike Mickelson (555 votes), Debra Adams (520 votes), and Aaron Hansen (456 votes) – all of them political newcomers.
The new trio is ahead of both City Council incumbent Ken Jones and Mayor David Allison for an interesting switch-up.
Jones, who ran for council re-election, received 251 votes. Jones first served on the City Council from 2017-2020, then lost re-election. He was then elected to his most recent term from 2022 through this year.
Allison – the mayor running for council in order to debate and have more voting power – finished the night fifth with 248 votes. He previously served multiple stints on the council: from 1991-1994, 2011-2014, 2016-2019, and 2019-2022. He lost one council re-election campaign after his 2011-2014 term.
Allison has only served as mayor for one term: 2022-2025. Because he chose to run for council this year, he is vacating his mayoral seat.
The mayor and City Council positions are all unpaid, according to City Clerk Susan Bourgeois.
On the Cordova School District Board of Education, Emma Merritt (412 votes) and Kate Trudeau (352 votes) are the two highest vote-getters. They’ll likely fill in the two empty School Board seats, as incumbent board member Terri Stavig (316 votes) and candidate Grafton Schikora (273 votes) trailed at the end of election night.
Other Election Day preliminary results
Shelly Kocan and Annie Linville will assume their positions as members of the Hospital Services Board. As there were two board seats open and only two candidates, that election hasn’t garnered much attention.
Cordovans also overwhelmingly voted “Yes” on both ballot propositions. Proposition 1 asked voters whether or not the city treasurer must be a resident of Cordova, and Proposition 2 asked whether or not the tax assessor must be a city resident.
Bourgeois said there was a total of 715 ballots tallied on March 4. That includes 463 cast at the polls on Election Day, 231 early ballots, 16 mailed ballots returned, and five special needs ballots returned.
In addition, there could still be as many as 35 outstanding ballots that still need to be scanned. Those include 32 mail-in ballots that would need to be returned by March 18, and three ballots that need to be investigated by the Division of Elections.
Currently, voter turnout is down this cycle compared with the 2022 municipal election. In 2022 there were 2,042 registered voters and 843 ballots cast for a 41.28% voter turnout, according to Bourgeois. This year, voter registration was down to 2,013 people. Even if all of the remaining 35 ballots are counted, voter turnout will be lower – with a maximum of 37.25%.
The municipal election certification is scheduled for the March 19 regular City Council meeting. The candidates will begin their terms the following day, on March 20.
This story was updated at 4:55 p.m. on March 5.
