Cities done counting votes, borough still going

PALMER — A couple of nail-biters on the Mat-Su Borough ballot won’t be resolved until later this week, but the cities of Houston and Palmer have finished up their ballot counting.

The result of the counting of early and absentee votes in the two cities shows no change in any of the races.

To recap, in Palmer that means DeLena Johnson will remain mayor and Edna DeVries will remain on the council. Kathi Vanover will not, though, with her seat going instead to newcomer Steve Carrington.

In Houston, it means that deputy mayor Jim Johansen handily defeated challenger Ron Gaffney 108 to 64. Incumbents Paul Stout and Kathy Barney won re-election having failed to draw a challenger. Houston voters also decided to keep in place a 2 percent tax on the sale of fireworks to help pay for the city’s fire department.

The borough, meanwhile, said in a press release spokeswoman Patty Sullivan issued Thursday that all the votes there won’t be counted until Oct. 11 or 12.

A close race was made even closer there when a clerical error subtracted 100 votes from Matthew Beck’s total, leaving him still ahead, but only just barely with 735 votes to incumbent Noel Woods’ 712.

Also too close to call is the other assembly race between Jim Sykes and Doug Glenn. Sykes has 996 votes to Glenn’s 951.

And yet a third close race is for Mat-Su School Board Seat F. In a field of four candidates, challenger Donna Dearman leads incumbent Neal Lacy 2,435 to 2,300.

The borough says there are potentially more than 1,800 votes still outstanding.