Republicans (l-r) Renee Milne, Shawn Milne, Brittany Adams, Blair Hope, Sandy Critchlow and Steve Pruden watch election results Tuesday night at the Tooele County Building.
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Loading...In January, Shawn Milne will leave the Tooele City Council to take a seat on the Tooele County Commission.
Milne garnered 59 percent of the vote in the race to claim the only county commission spot up for election this year.
“It was a very decisive victory,” said Milne. “I think voters made it very clear that they want the county to go in a different direction and that direction is towards more fiscal responsibility.”
The county commission race this year took a few twists. Incumbent Republican commissioner Colleen Johnson, who was re-elected without a Democratic challenger in 2008 with 72 percent of the vote, was knocked out of the race at the Tooele County Republican convention in April.
A month before the election, Johnson put herself back on the ballot as a write-in candidate. On election night, she finished in fourth place with 470 votes for 3 percent of ballots cast.
Johnson said she felt like she had unfinished business on the commission that she wanted to take care of, including tackling budget issues, economic development, and securing funding for relief services.
A predicted $4 million shortfall in revenue that lead to layoffs and wholesale elimination of some county departments in September dominated the county commissioner campaign. Johnson will now leave these issues for Milne to tackle.
Tooele native George Young represented the Democratic Party on the ballot and received 33 percent of the vote.
“I gave it my all and fell short,” said Young. “Although I had bi-partisan support, it was hard to overcome a large amount of straight-party votes.”
Out of the 16,079 votes cast for county commissioner, there were 3,814 straight-party votes for Republicans compared to 1,704 for Democrats.
Young is not sure if his future will include another political campaign.
“I will have to give that some thought,” said Young. “I felt like I had good support and I am thankful for all the people that helped with the campaign.”
