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Votes get canvassed
Council makes the call during recent meeting

Members of Williams City Council met March 27 to canvass the votes from the recent March 11 primary election. Williams Interim City Clerk Harry Holmes read the results of the recent election to council members during the meeting. He also cited the runoff candidates who would face each other in a general election May 20.

Council members adopted resolution 1220, which approved the canvass of votes. John Moore opposed the resolution. Council members Andrew Hamby, Bernie Hiemenz, Don Dent, Jim Wurgler and Kevin Young voted to approve the resolution.

"It's done in the format that was used in, at least, the last four prior primary elections. Following that, before I get in to reading the canvass, there are some other items there; a summary of legal findings, followed by the legal opinions of the staff attorney for the League of the Arizona Cities and Towns," Harry Holmes told council members during the meeting. "There's also a summary of canvasses from those four prior elections at the very end of the packet, showing that the method used there is the same as what was stated by the two attorneys in their legal opinions."

The number of ballots cast in each precinct in the city, Holmes told council members, amounted to 277 votes for Precinct 98 and 323 votes for Precinct 99. Six hundred ballots were cast in all during the March Primary Election.

"That is a 44.7 percent turnout for registered voters," Holmes said. "Of that number, the 600, 23 were provisional and three votes were found to be ineligible. Two of them lived outside of the city, one was not registered at all. There were also two conditional ballots, requiring Proposition 200 ID, both of which were counted after they provided the ID. The title of the offices voted for and the names of the persons winning seats at the primary, Councilman Frank W. McNelly and Councilman James Wurgler. The number of votes received by each candidate; John W. Moore, mayor, 296, Ken Edes, for mayor, 276, Frank W. McNelly, for council, 446, James Wurgler, for council, 377, Bernie Hiemenz, for council, 287, William Miller, for council, 249, and Walter Eastland, for council, 237. The number of votes required for election at the primary is 301 or more. John Moore and Ken Edes will hold a runoff election for mayor on May 20, 2008. Bernie Hiemenz and William Miller will hold a runoff election for council on May 20, 2008. That concludes the canvass."

Other council matters

Council members discussed a number of other matters during their regularly scheduled meeting as well. Members approved a motion regarding the display of the American Flag during their meeting and agreed that they would stand behind any business owner who displayed the flag. The motion came after a visitor to Williams filed a complaint with the city. The visitor told city officials that she tripped on the sidewalk after she walked around the flag.

Council members awarded a bid on the Country Club Road project and voted to approve the process for amending the city's general plan. Members followed that approval with a minor amendment that would include the proposed Arizona State Railroad Museum in the city's growth area recommendation.

Council members were also updated on the current status of the city's wells in relation to legislature that would allow the city to utilize water from the Dogtown I and III wells north of Williams. A full story on the wells will appear in next week's edition of the Williams-Grand Canyon News.


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