Askeland, Simms, Walkey elected to Council
- Published: November 9, 2011
Yellow Springs voters elected Lori Askeland, Gerald Simms and Rick Walkey to seats on Village Council on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Askeland and Walkey were both incumbents seeking a second term, and Simms was a newcomer to the race. The three winners join current Council members Judith Hempfling and Karen Wintrow.
The highest vote-getter, Askeland was returned to Council for another four years. Newcomer Simms also earned a four-year term as the second highest winner. Walkey, who had served one two-year term, earned another two-year term.
About 51 percent of Yellow Springs voters went to the polls, according to information from the Greene County Board of Elections.
Overall in Yellow Springs, Askeland had 1,158, or 27 percent of the vote; Simms had 966, or 23 percent; and Walkey came away with 888 votes, or 21 percent. The two other candidates for Council, Shane Creepingbear and Dan Reyes, came in fourth and fifth in the race, with Creepingbear fourth with 703 votes, or 16 percent, and Reyes receiving 549, or 13 percent.
Chris Mucher returns to Miami Township Trustees after defeating native Yellow Springer John Eastman. Mucher, who has served 15 years on the board, earned another four-year term, and will join Trustees Mark Crockett and Lamar Spracklen.
Uncontested Miami Township Fiscal Officer Margaret Silliman will return to office, 1,733 voters casting votes for her.
STATE AND COUNTY ISSUES
Villagers went against the grain in Ohio and Greene County on Election Day, as they most often do. While Yellow Springers joined the majority of Ohioans in defeating the controversial anti-labor Issue 2, they did so by a much larger margin, casting four to one votes against the measure. And while the majority of Ohioans supported Issue 3, a Tea Party-initiated effort to block health care reform, Yellow Springs voters said a strong no to that effort.
State Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have raised the maximum age at which a judge could take office from 70 to 75, was defeated as 62 percent of Ohio voters cast their vote against the amendment. Two-thirds of local voters in Yellow Springs and Miami Township rejected the measure while in Greene County 61 percent opposed it.
Issue 2, the state referendum on the controversial SB 5 that drastically curtailed collective bargaining rights for the state’s 360,000 public employees, was defeated at the polls. In Yellow Springs and Miami Township the measure was rejected by an overwhelming 82 percent of voters. In Greene County, 53 percent voted against it.
Two-thirds of Ohioans voted in favor of a constitutional amendment aimed at exempting Ohioans from the health insurance mandate of President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Health Care Act, even though just 24 percent of villagers and township residents voted to approve the measure. State Issue 3 passed with 66 percent of vote statewide and 72 percent in Greene County. In Yellow Springs, 1,350 votes were cast against the measure and 482 in favor. Miami Township residents narrowly voted in favor of the amendment, 302 to 272 votes.
Voters renewed a 0.5 mill operating levy for Greene Memorial Hospital that will pay for emergency room equipment and help maintain services in cancer treatment, stroke and advanced cardiac care at the hospital in Xenia and at satellite health facilities in Fairborn and Beavercreek.
The measure passed with 61 percent of the Greene County vote, while 80 percent of local voters favored the levy.
Greene County Career Center’s 0.75 mill levy narrowly passed with 52 percent of the county vote. But more than three-quarters of local voters in Yellow Springs and Miami Township voted for the levy.
See the Nov. 10 issue of the News for full election results.
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