David Slone, Managing Editor, and Amanda Bridgman, Staff Writer-
GOP Sweeps County Races HandilyIndiana is known as a “red” state, and that held true for Tuesday’s general election.
Not only was the state called early for Republican President Donald Trump, but at the county level, voters continued the red streak in competitive races for judge, county council at-large and commissioner middle district.
Chad Miner won the election for Superior Court III judge with 24,162 votes, besting his Democrat opponent Antony Garza, who had 10,722.
Miner beat his three other Republican opponents in the primary election and was then faced with going up against Garza to fill the bench being left open by retiring Superior Court III Judge Joe Sutton.
"I'm very honored that the folks in Kosciusko County chose me to be the next judge for Superior Court III," Miner said Tuesday night while celebrating at the Republican Party Headquarters in downtown Warsaw. "I really appreciate all the great supporters that we had and helped us. I'm just very excited. It's a real honor, and we've been working at it for a while, a year, and my wife, Rachel, is really excited too, and she's been a big help and I really appreciate her helping and all my family's help too and we're all very excited."
Miner is the president of the Silver Lake Town Council and serves as the Kosciusko County attorney. He will have to leave those posts when he takes his new job as judge.
Garza spent part of his night at 110 Craft Meatery in downtown Warsaw Tuesday night with fellow Democrat candidates.
"I'm disappointed with the results, but the voters have spoken," Garza said. "Running for office has been a great learning experience and will serve me well in the future. I appreciate the efforts of everyone who worked on the campaign and appreciate the support I've been shown."
Husband-and-wife team of Cary and Kathleen Groninger picked up victories for commissioner and county council at-large respectively.
“We’re super excited. I feel honored just to be given the opportunity to serve our community over the next four years again. I’m just kind of overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for me and my campaign,” Cary said.
Going forward, he said the county has a lot of things in motion already.
“We’ve got our rural broadband that’s going on. We’ve got our comprehensive plan. We’ve got our strategic housing initiative. We have our public safety communication, so we’ve got four major projects that are already in progress,” Cary said. “... That’s just some of those top initiatives that I know I am going to be pushing forward to see those get accomplished because I really think that’s what’s going to prepare us for that next generation ... just making Kosciusko County a place people want to come and live and play.”
Three seats were up for county council at-large, with three Republicans and three Democrats vying for them. Kathleen Groninger received the most votes of all six women with 22,433, followed by incumbent Sue Ann Mitchell with 20,917; incumbent Joni Truex with 20,498; and Democrats Tanya Coon-Kauffman, Noemi Ponce and Lori Roe with 6,743 votes, 7,156 votes and 6,212 votes respectively.
“I’m really excited. I’m very thankful and really excited and humbled,” Kathleen said.
She said she was looking forward to “really getting started” and “digging in, working hard and just doing my best for the county.”
COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the county budget for 2021, and likely will have a bigger impact on the 2022 and 2023 budgets. Kathleen said the challenge to the council to address those budgets will depend on what happens soon.
“It definitely can be a big challenge, but if we get back to normal pretty quickly, then it doesn’t look like it’s going to be quite as bad as we thought, and next year we should be OK. It’ll be the following years, but I think a lot of it will depend on what happens here soon, personally,” she said.
Mitchell said she was excited the election was over and they won.
“We will continue to do exactly what we’ve done: Be responsible with the taxpayers’ money, stay open and be willing to listen to what people have to say, be receptive to new and different ideas,” she said.
“Also, working forward with our strategic plan. We’ll get back onto that. So we have a lot of things that we are still trying to work through, that we will see to the end, hopefully.”
Mitchell has proposed an idea for the county council to meet twice a month instead of once as it does now to watch the budget even more than it already does.
“That’s something I believe that we either need to dedicate some specific time, in our regular meeting – which, our meetings sometimes are long, sometimes are short – I don’t think that’s the right way to do it. That’s my personal opinion, I’m one of seven. I believe it makes much more sense to go to a second meeting where we do nothing but concentrate on budgets that night and we take a line-by-line look, as we’ve already done,” Mitchell said.
Truex said she felt blessed and humbled to have won.
“I think it’s a great vote of confidence in the jobs that we have done that we were re-elected. I look forward to working with Sue Ann and Kathy and the rest of the council,” she said.
She also believes that the council needs to have a separate regular meeting to discuss the budget, whether that’s a budget committee or the entire council. If it’s a committee, then she said they need to report back to the council at every meeting.
“I think we need to figure out a way to reduce expenses and increase revenues. I don’t know what that means. We need to take a good hard look at everything as it happens, all year long. All expenses. All revenues. I think this year we’ll be fine. Next year is going to be a little tighter, so I think we need to get a handle on it. We will see the effects of COVID in 2022 and 2023,” Truex said.
Roe released a statement late Tuesday night. She said, “I want to thank all of the Kosciusko County residents who supported me with their votes and encouragement. Thank you for voting and making your voice heard. My goal was to give the residents of our county a choice on the ballot and an opportunity for a new voice and new ideas on the Kosciusko County Council. And although I did not win, I am hopeful the excitement and encouragement I felt during the campaign will continue beyond Election Day.”
She congratulated Truex, Mitchell and Groninger.
“Noemi Ponce and Itanya Coon-Kauffman ran a great race, and I am proud to have run alongside them on the Democratic ticket. Thank you all for showing up and voting,” Roe concluded.
Kosciusko GOP Chairman Mike Ragan was really excited Tuesday night about the party’s candidates.
“We had a great ticket and it was nice, spirited campaign, and that’s always a good thing. And we’re very pleased with the way that it turned out for us. I’m just very proud of our candidates,” he said.
