THE DUST SETTLES
Runoff elections this past weekend led to a trio of victories for city council races in Taylor and Hutto.
Pending an official canvass of the votes, Heather Pacharzina Long is the new District 4 representative on the Taylor City Council, while Jim Morris and Aaron King will take the seats for Hutto City Council Places 3 and 6, respectively.
The runoffs took place June 7.
Taylor and Hutto will canvass votes June 17 and 18, respectively, with swearings-in to follow.
TAYLOR
With 64.98% of the vote, Long is projected to be the next District 4 council member. Long claimed 334 votes and her opponent, Marie Bloemer, earned 180 votes (35.02%).
In the initial May 3 election, the District 4 spot was a four-person race between Long, Bloemer, Shannon Quicksall and Gordon Pettey.
Long claimed 43.43% of the vote and Bloemer had 29.64%, while Quicksall garnered 26.39% and Pettey had less than 1 percent (0.38%).
Because none of the candidates received 50% of the vote, the runoff went to the two candidates in the lead.
Long takes over from Robert Garcia, who chose not to seek a fourth term.
Her term is for three years.
HUTTO
In the Place 3 race, Morris claimed 746 votes (55.92%) compared to 588 votes (44.08%) for his opponent, Cory Denena.
The two landed in a runoff because Denena and Morris had 44.02% and 42.90% of the vote, respectively, in May.
Monekia Kea also ran for the Place 3 spot, but only garnered 13.08% of ballots cast. Morris will take the spot vacated by incumbent Randal Clark, who decided not to run for reelection.
In Place 6, King had 738 votes (55.45%) to 593 votes (44.55%) for Amberley Kolar, the incumbent.
In the May 3 election, Kolar had the lead with 42.34% of the vote, while King was in second place with 29.65% of the ballots cast.
Brandon DeLeon (23.45%) and Erin McGowan (4.56%) also ran for the seat on the dais in May balloting.
Terms are for three years.
