New school board, city council members respond to election results

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Galion’s school board will see lit­tle change once the newly-elected mem­bers take their seats next year. Incum­bents Robert Zeisler and Den­nis Long won the high­est per­cent­ages of Tuesday’s votes and will be joined by new­comer Brian Owens, a 1993 Galion grad­u­ate cur­rently employed at Mans­field Lahm Air­port. Zeisler won upwards of 25 per­cent of the vote, closely fol­lowed by Long with almost 24 per­cent, and Owens edged out Kasy Wells to win almost 17 per­cent and gain a seat on the board.

City coun­cil retained one incum­bent and will gain two fresh­men councilmen.

The count will not be offi­cial until Nov. 21, when pro­vi­sional bal­lots cast either on Elec­tion Day or by mem­bers of the armed forces deployed over­seas will be added to the tally.

“I’m excited. I’ve got to thank all the peo­ple offer­ing their sup­port in the belief that I can help the Galion school sys­tem,” Owens said by phone after results were released late Tues­day night. “It’s going to be an excit­ing chal­lenge for me.” The Air Force vet­eran is attend­ing OSU-Mansfield in pur­suit of a B.A. in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion and is involved in youth ath­let­ics, includ­ing high school football.

Another polit­i­cal new­comer will join city coun­cil. Ken­neth Bod­kins, owner of Ken’s Auto Repair and co-owner of Vic­tory Lanes, ran unop­posed for an at-large coun­cil seat and received 1954 votes.

“Peo­ple keep ask­ing me, ‘what’s your agenda?’” Bod­kins said by phone late Tues­day. “I don’t have one yet. I just want to do what’s right for the whole town. I’ve got to get my feet wet and see how the sys­tem works.”

Bod­kins would have liked to have had a chal­lenger, he said, but was happy the race was finished.

Cur­rent coun­cil pres­i­dent Gail Baldinger won reelec­tion in ward three with almost 70 per­cent of the vote, defeat­ing write-in chal­lenger Shirley Clark, who presently sits at-large in coun­cil. “I do want to thank the vot­ers for sup­port­ing me,” Baldinger said by phone. “I’ve enjoyed it and I want to con­tinue mov­ing for­ward.” He encour­aged city res­i­dents to attend coun­cil meet­ings and com­mu­ni­cate with their coun­cil mem­bers to improve the city.

A close race in ward one gave Paul Flan­nery a slim vic­tory over retired Galion fire chief Mick Chris­tini. “Well, the peo­ple spoke,” Chris­tini said Tues­day night. “I didn’t run a very active cam­paign so it’s prob­a­bly my fault,” he said, that he received fewer votes than Flan­nery once Tuesday’s votes were counted. “I hope every­thing goes well for the city.”

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Nov 9 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.