Polk municipal election results made official

Published 9:03 pm Thursday, November 12, 2015

By Leah Justice

leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

Polk County’s municipal election results were made official this week after an official canvassing of votes was completed by the Polk County Board of Elections on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The winners of the elections for councils for Columbus, Saluda and Tryon did not change from last Tuesday’s unofficial results.

Columbus

In Columbus, incumbent mayor Eric McIntyre received at total of 61 votes. McIntyre ran unopposed this year.

Other winners for Columbus council members included incumbent Margaret Metcalf, who was the high vote getter with 53 votes with incumbent Richard Hall close behind with 51 votes. Newcomer Mark Phillips also won a seat with 34 votes, beating Emily Gage who received 18 votes.

Saluda

Saluda had a race for two open commissioner seats with three names on the ballot. High vote getter was newcomer Stanley Walker, who received 140 votes with incumbent Leon Morgan retaining his seat with 107 votes. Karen Bultman, who dropped out of the race officially but remained on the ballot, received 14 votes.  Saluda also received 81 write-in votes, 78 of which were cast for current commissioner Lynn Cass, who chose not to run this year. But following Bultman’s dropping out of the race Cass campaigned as a write-in candidate.

Tryon

Tryon saw a race for both mayor and commissioners. Alan Peoples won the mayor seat over incumbent Jim Wright with 188 votes to Wright’s 152 votes.

There were two open commissioner seats with four candidates. Newcomer Crys Armbrust was the high vote getter with 217 votes. Incumbent commissioner Roy Miller retained his seat with 148 votes. Doug Arbogast lost the race by 20 votes, receiving 128 votes, while incumbent commissioner George Baker received 115 votes.

Following the election last week, Tryon commissioner Happy McLeod resigned her position. Tryon will likely appoint someone next week to fill McLeod’s remaining term, which is set to expire in 2017. Tryon council will meet in the McCown meeting room of town hall at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Look in the weekend edition of the Bulletin for an article on voter turnout.