City of Warsaw had only one race in Tuesday’s general election with the two Republicans beating out the Democrat for the at-large seats on the common council. Incumbent Cindy A. Dobbins received 726 votes for her second-term bid and newcomer Jack Wilhite got 678 to give them the two council at-large seats, while Democrat David Baumgartner came in third with 374. Wilhite will replace Elaine Call, who decided not to run for re-election. “I feel pretty good,” Wilhite said after the results came in at the county courthouse Tuesday night. “I’m thankful to the citizens of Warsaw, everybody that voted. I’m very happy that they put their trust in me. The city’s got quite a few projects going forward. I just hope I can do right by them, and make the best decisions that are right by all.” Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer was unopposed in his re-election bid Tuesday, as were Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen, Dist. 1 Councilman Jeff Grose, Dist. 3 Councilman Mike Klondaris, Dist. 4 Councilman William “Jerry” Frush and Dist. 5 Councilwoman Diane Quance. Though Dist. 2 Councilman Charlie Smith was killed in an airplane crash Oct. 2, and the ballot said “Candidate Deceased,” he still received 62 votes. A Republican caucus to replace Smith on the council is scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 12 in the city council chambers. Wilhite said there wasn’t anything in particular he was looking forward to working on once he got on the council. “I don’t have an agenda. I don’t have anything in particular, but I hope that I’ll be put on some committees that fit my personality, fit my tools set,” he said. Because he’s a manufacturing engineer, Wilhite said he’s thinking about how things are processed all the time. “We’ll have to take a look at some things and see how they fit. Sometimes it takes a while to figure those things out and know just where your niche is and where you can do the most good,” he said. His background with a large company is going to be beneficial when it comes to things like city employee salaries that the council had to deal with at its meeting Monday, he said. “I can bring in another perspective that maybe some of them didn’t have up there,” Wilhite said. “Those are the things that I really I hope I can be a benefit to the city for.” Dobbins said she is really looking forward to serving another four-year term. “There’s still a lot of unfinished business, a lot that I want to accomplish,” she said. “I’m going to miss Elaine Call, I’ll miss sitting next to her. But I’m real excited about the opportunity to work with Jack Wilhite. I think he will bring another different perspective to the council, and I think that diversity is important.” Asked what she wanted to tackle or get done in the next four years, Dobbins responded, “I think we have a lot of development projects started. I hope to see the Certified Technology Park, we got more investment in that area. The North Buffalo Street project. Of course, the Market Street project will hopefully come into fruition in the next year or two. So I think we’ve got a lot on our plate right now.” Dobbins thanked all of the voters, saying, “I know voter turnout was light today but I really appreciate those people that turned out. I think more importantly than anything, I just wanted people to turn out and vote no matter who they voted for. I think people need to exercise their right to vote.” Of the 11,677 eligible registered voters in Kosciusko County, only 1,334 – or 11.42 percent – cast their ballots. Saturday, she said, “We made a lot of calls trying to get people interested in getting out to vote, but, unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t realize there was an election. So, that was sad.” On Dobbins’ re-election and Wilhite’s election, Thallemer said, “You know, we’ve had a great four years with the current council, and Cindy will be kind of a carryover, and with Jack I’m very excited. Jack and I graduated together. I think we see about eye-to-eye on about everything. He’s ‘no agenda’ and ready to take the city to the next level, and I’m thrilled to have him added to the council.” Thallemer said Wilhite’s experience in manufacturing broadens the diversity of the council. “The more experience and the broader the experience, the better experience for our citizens,” Thallemer said. He said he wasn’t surprised at Tuesday’s low election turnout. “I didn’t see much anywhere about. I know Cindy and Jack had phone trees going to try and get the vote out, and they were surprised at the number of folks who didn’t even realize there was an election,” Thallemer said. “I think a lot of the primaries next year are already ramping up and superseding some of the municipal elections. Of course, in this community there was only the one contested race, so I know it’s hard for people to get excited with just one single race when there’s all the hoo-haw of the senatorial and congressional and the national races. It really kind of overshadowed it, but it’s still an election and everybody had the opportunity to vote, and certainly you always want a higher turnout, but we went through the process and did what we were supposed to do and those who came out said who they wanted and that’s the good news of the evening.”
