Sitting on the Mentone Town Council come January will be a new face, but only after a very close race.
Voters Tuesday could choose three of four candidates to serve on the board for the next four years. They chose two incumbents, Democrat Tim Croy who received 57 votes, and Republican Jill Gross who received 49 votes.
Receiving 42 votes for the third seat was Republican Shelly Krueger, who edged out the third incumbent, Kent Ganshorn, by only one vote. That one vote may have been Krueger’s own.
“It’s probably my vote,” Krueger said in a telephone interview Tuesday night. “I was sick today so I debated whether or not to go.”
In the end, she decided to go cast her vote.
Ganshorn said he doesn’t think he will challenge the results. He enjoyed his time on the board and thinks they are heading in the right direction.
“Just work through the couple of issues we have now and I hope it continues in the right direction,” he said during a telephone interview last night.
Krueger, Ganshorn and Gross were chosen at a Republican caucus Aug. 13 to be the Republican candidates for the Mentone Town Council. The other candidate at the caucus was David Hudson.
Ganshorn took a seat on the town council in January to fill Jack Simpson’s position after Simpson resigned.
After learning he was re-elected, and received the most votes of any of the candidates, Croy said, “I want to thank the community for their support, and I’m looking forward to driving the community closer together so we can grow together.”
He said he appreciates the other candidates on the board, even though he’s a Democrat and they are Republicans, and the work they have done for the community.
For the next four years, Croy said his goal was to “keep doing what we’re doing. I think we need to keep making progress as we have the last eight years I’ve been on the board.”
Krueger said she wants to talk to the public and see what their concerns are and to see if she can get those done once she’s on the council.
She started the farmer’s market in town, and she wants to see what other ideas she can get done for Mentone.
An employee of the Bell Memorial Library for the past 10 years, she said she enjoys serving the public and looks forward to serving it more on the council.
As Croy is her neighbor and Gross serves on the library board, Krueger said they all get along well.
“I think we have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Gross.
She said the town still has work to do like tearing down the condemned properties in town.
As for goals, Gross said, “I still want to see a five-person council because, now, I feel like it’s going to always be two against one. Five would relieve the pressure.”
Mentone Clerk-Treasurer Barb Ross ran unopposed and received 45 votes.
