Of the city’s 18,088 registered voters, only 1,437 — a mere 8 percent — determined which candidates will advance to the general election. That compares to an 18 percent turnout in the 2007 municipal primary.Current Tooele Mayor Patrick Dunlavy won the four-candidate mayoral primary easily with 54 percent of the vote. Out of 21 precincts, Dunlavy won 20, his only loss coming in Precinct No. 19.2, which covers a small area on the southwest end of town two blocks east of the skate park and north of Timpie Road.
“The voters took a look ay my record and decided the city is going in the right direction,” said Dunlavy.
Dunlavy’s challenger in the general election on Nov. 3 will be real estate broker Dan Egelund — if he holds onto his 18-vote lead over retired police officer Becky Bracken.
Tooele County Clerk Marilyn Gillette announced today that there will be recount of the ballots for Tooele City mayor at 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 21, in the old district court room at the county building.
“The race is so close we are going to go ahead and do a recount,” Gillette said. “We will include at that time all absentee and provisional ballots.”
“It is close,” said Bracken. “I worked hard and so did a lot of people that supported me. We aren’t giving up until the count is official.”
Egelund felt positive about his prospects in a head-to-head contest with Dunlavy.
“Although the mayor took a majority of the votes, there were 46 percent of the voters who did not vote for him,” Egelund said. “That has to be a wake-up call to him that there are a lot of people that are not happy.”
Bracken said she is waiting for the final tally before she makes any decision about endorsing another candidate.
In the Tooele City Council race, incumbent Scott Wardle led a field of eight candidates with 30 percent of the vote. John Hansen, the other incumbent in the two-seat race, came in second with 19 percent. Shawn Milne, past chairman of the Tooele City Planning Commission, took 18 percent of the vote, while Laura Liddell, a newcomer to city politics, came in fourth with 11 percent of the vote.
These four names will appear on the general election ballot with the top two voter-getters being elected to four-year terms. Andy Free, Richard Mitchell, Bryan Parker, and Tom Poyner were eliminated from the ballot.
In Grantsville’s city council race, James Vera broke away from a five-candidate pack with 35 percent of the vote. Mike Colson came in second with 23 percent and Erik Stromberg came in third place with 22 percent. Colleen Brunson mustered up 13 percent for fourth place, enough votes to keep her on the ballot in the general election.
Shawn Bennett was the only council candidate eliminated in Grantsville’s primary election.
Vera said he was surprised by the strength of his support.
“I did not really expect to do as well as I did,” Vera said. “It is hard to know what to expect, you go out and talk to people and they all say good things, but until the votes are counted, you don’t really know how you are doing.”
Rush Valley also held a primary on Tuesday with 49 percent of their voters returning their vote by mail ballots. They trimmed one person off of their list of candidates for city council. Dropped from the list of candidates was Vickie Metcalf. Voters in Rush Valley will select two new council members from a list that will include Alan Anderton, Laurie Ford, William Harding, and Teresa Neal.
Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
I congratulate Becky Beckstrom for running for Mayor.
Even though she placed a close third in the Primary election, she made a difference.
To me, Becky stands for integrity. I wish that we had more city employees with such a high-level of integrity.
In my book, Becky should be promoted from Detective Sargeant (retired by the incumbents) to Sargeant-Major (because she deserves it).
My understanding of Becky Beckstrom is that she ran a very good race for Mayor -- and she almost won, but finished closely behind Dan Egelund.
This is why we have a Mayoral Primary in Tooele. So that the final election is between two strong candidates.
I believe that the Mayoral race in Tooele is going to be very important this year.
The City Elections (i.e. the Municipal elections) this year are very important!
The election this year is between your public-safety or wasting your tax dollars to pay for Salt Lake City Attorneys!
Thank you Becky Beckstrom for making a difference in Tooele City this election year (as you have the past 20 years in your long history of integrity and service to Tooele).
I am going to vote for Dan Egelund for Mayor in the election in November because Dan will make a much better Mayor than the incumbent would be.
In my judgement, the incumbent, although he has 42 years of experience with Tooele City, as Mayor he is not adequately funding public safety.
The incumbent seems to be driven -- not by funding the Tooele City Police Dept.
Right here in Tooele, in the last session of the city Council, the incumbents -- both in the city council, and in the Mayor's office -- approved funding of $75,000.00 in one night to pay for expensive attorneys. Not is this only wasteful -- the incumbents are sending Tooele's tax dollars to Salt Lake City attorney's.
This money could be spent for your public-safety -- right here in Tooele -- instead, the money is sent to Salt Lake.
This money could be spent to improve our streets. The next time that you wonder why a street has potholes, you now know. The city is wasting your tax dollars!
The next time that you buy something in Tooele and wonder where the money is going. Now you know. The city is taking your money to fight law-suits that should not be fighting.
The Tooele Chamber of commerce has a slogan which is: "Tooele, Live in it, Shop in it, and Thrive in it!
The incumbents of Tooele are being very hypocritical to put this slogan on our buildings in Tooele -- such as the library and even on the City building.
What the incumbents are all doing is giving lip-service to the Tooele Chamber of Commerce and what they are actually doing is quite different -- they are taking your tax dollars and taking funding from the public-safety budget and are wasting our tax dollars being advesarial and contentious, using Salt Lake attorneys to fight their personal vendettas.
This has got to stop!!
Vote for a change that is good.
Vote for a man of integrity!
Vote for Dan Egelund for Mayor of Tooele in November.
Kaydell Leavitt
Tooele, Utah