Two Escanaba City Councilmen, including the city’s longtime mayor, were soundly defeated in their re-election bids on Tuesday.
Final unofficial results from the city clerk’s office showed challengers Mark Ammel, Todd Flath, and Ron Beauchamp with the most votes.
Marc Tall, who’s been on the council and served as mayor since 2013, finished fifth out of the six people on the ballot. And Councilman Ralph Blasier, who was the target of a recall effort last summer after making controversial comments in the wake of violent nationwide protests, finished last in the balloting.
Ammel was the top vote-getter with 1,491 votes. Flath, another newcomer, was second with 1,026 votes. The third seat will go to Ron Beauhamp, who served on the council during the city’s exhaustive sale of its power plant. Beauchamp got the third-most votes with 940.
Michael Sattem, who also has served on the Escanaba City Council in the past, finished fourth with 835 votes. Tall ended up with 611 votes and Blasier had 469.
Both Tall and Blasier also received negative press recently when the city’s planning commission chairman spoke at an October 21st city council meeting and suggested that there was a large sum of money missing from city coffers. The money in question was from the ill-fated attempt to develop the old Delta County Jail site into a hotel.
The missing $29,000 is still being investigated by police.
Voter turnout on Tuesday was at just under 21%.
The Escanaba City Council will have a special organizational meeting next Monday, November 8, at 7:30 p.m.
Comments