Names released for upcoming city, school elections

WASHINGTON — With the filing deadline passed, the Washington County Auditor’s Office has released a list of every city and school candidate whose name will appear on ballots Nov. 4.

With two months to go before Election Day, candidates have just begun their campaign pitches and door-knocking efforts. But the election paperwork submitted to officials last week offers some insight about who will — and won’t — be in the race, barring any major write-in campaigns.

Mixed bag for municipal competition in Washington

After a hotly contested special election for the position in April of 2024, Washington Mayor Millie Youngquist appears poised to run unopposed for another term at the city’s helm. While she’s only held the office for about a year and a half, her current term finishes that of former Mayor Jaron Rosien, who won his own uncontested election in 2021, but resigned early last year.

In the city’s second ward, Jennine Wolf — a former county environmental health director — is the only name on the ballot. Council Member Ivan Rangel, who currently represents the ward, announced weeks ago that he didn’t plan to run again. Wolf ran against Rangel and one other candidate back in 2023, but without opposition on the ballot in 2025, may have an easier time at the polls this election season.

Other contests for city government openings in Washington look more competitive.

In Ward 4, longtime Council Member Fran Stigers seeks re-election, up against challenger candidate Susan Carroll, a former City Clerk in Richland who was born and raised in Washington, and moved back to town after a brief period away in 2000.

Even more hotly contested is the race for at-large council member, where incumbent Elaine Moore will run a contested campaign against council newcomers Gary Steven Howard and Doug Hoyle. Howard is a longtime resident of Washington, working as a scale tech and a welder fabricator. Hoyle is a lifelong resident of county, who says he currently works in hog facility construction and remodeling, as an estimator and project manager.

While Moore has previously suggested she wouldn’t seek re-election if other candidates stepped up to the plate, she clarified Wednesday morning that she still planned to campaign for another term.

“At one time, I thought, ‘If somebody’s going to run, fine,’ I hadn’t decided at the time if I was going to,” she said. “But then I decided to, I decided to run.”

Washington, Highland boards poised for quiet reelections. Not Mid-Prairie.

Candidates to Washington’s school board are all set to run uncontested re-election campaigns, as incumbents Jim Almelien, Mindi Rees and Mike Liska are the only names listed on their respective ballots.

It’s a similar story at Highland, where incumbents Nate Robinson, Aaron Friederich and Jarrod Longbine appear to be running unopposed. Also uncontested will be Cody Thompson, a newcomer to the board and the sole nominee for the open district 1 seat.

Mid-Prairie is another ball game.

County candidate records show five names in contention for three open seats, all of which are at-large on the Mid-Prairie school board. While the field is smaller than the nine-member race back in 2021, it still offers voters plenty of options to choose from.

Two of those options are incumbents Jacob Snider and Jed Seward. Jim Miller, another candidate in the race, ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2023. The other two, Michael Burns and Kirah Johnson, are newcomers to the race, with names not appearing on Mid-Prairie school board ballots in recent memory.

Shake-ups possible in nearby small towns

Some small towns around Washington County can likely expect low-key election seasons this year, including Wellman, where Mayor Ryan Miller and both council members up for re-election are set to run unopposed. The same is true for Riverside Mayor Allen Schneider and West Chester Mayor Chad Peiffer.

Most will see some level of competition: three people are vying for Ainsworth’s mayoral seat, including incumbent Troy McCarthy and challengers Ron Greiner and Derrick Stewart. Ainsworth’s council is up for grabs as well, with three incumbents in the race against two challengers.

Similarly, Crawfordsville’s three incumbents are up against a new candidate, while Riverside’s Tom Sexton is the only incumbent in a four-person race for two city council seats, although former Council Member Edgar McGuire is also in the running. Crawfordsville Fire Chief Roy Felts is the only candidate in the running for mayor of the town.

Three community members — none of them incumbents — are vying for two council seats in Brighton, where Brighton Fire Chief Bill Farmer is the only contender listed for the city’s mayoral election. That may be contentious in itself: Farmer has publicly clashed with elected officials before over his department’s funding.

Meanwhile in the small town of West Chester, incumbent council members Delores Lillie and Ronald Carey are the only names on the ballot in a race for five open at-large seats. The city of 144 people has had similar trouble filling its ballot in years past.

While the list provided by the Washington County Auditor’s Office tells constituents what names will print on the ballots they see in the mail or in-person on Nov. 4, they don’t guarantee anyone’s success at the polls. Voters have surprised local officials before: Brighton Council Member Scott Hughes won as a write-in candidate during a special election in 2024, as did West Chester Mayor Chad Peiffer in 2023’s election for his two-year term.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com