No surprises in Tower and area township elections

REGIONAL- Tower Mayor Dave Setterberg received 91-percent of the votes, with 158 tallies, to retain the mayor’s seat. He was running unopposed but there were 15 write-ins in the race.
Incumbent John VanDeVoort will serve out the remainder of the term he was appointed to two years ago, tallying 166 votes with 8 write-ins.
There were two open four-year council seats and only person, incumbent Joe Morin had filed. Morin took 165 votes, and there were 29 write-ins. The top write-in candidate was Emily Schultz, with 18 votes. Schultz had announced she was seeking the open council seat with a write-in campaign in mid-October. Emily Schultz also received write-in votes for mayor and the two-year council term.
Setterberg said the city is determining the correct procedure for awarding the open council seat, but he expected Schultz to be seated and said he was glad she had stepped up.
In Kugler Township, incumbent supervisor Dean Broten was elected with 91 votes, and treasurer Diane Meehan with 91 votes. Both incumbents were running unopposed.
In Embarrass, incumbent treasurer Mary Novak won with 271 votes. The open supervisor seat, which had no filer, received 55 write-in votes, but according to an election judge, there was no clear winner, with four people getting four votes each, and others getting three or fewer. The election judges didn’t have the write-in results from the early voting ballots, so there may be a clear winner, if that person decides they want to accept the position.
The Timberjay will be following up on these and other township election issues and results in next week’s paper.