A new face will be joining the Tonganoxie City Council.
Challenger Dennis Bixby and incumbent Bill Peak were elected to the council Tuesday, beating out incumbent Paula Crook, who was elected in 2007.
Bixby, a former construction project manager who now is self-employed, was the top vote-getter with 426, while Peak, who is retired from the U.S. Postal Service, had 420 and Crook, who works for Meals on Wheels, with 356. The three candidates were vying for two open seats.
Peak was elected for the first time Tuesday. Mayor Jason Ward appointed him in 2010 to fill the position previously held by Tom Putthoff, who resigned in August.
Mayor Jason Ward ran unopposed Tuesday.
Results won’t be final until Leavenworth County commissioners canvass the votes, a process set to start at 9 a.m. Friday at the Leavenworth County Courthouse.
Tonganoxie school board
A retired carpenter will be the newest member of the Tonganoxie school board.
Gene Becker won the election Tuesday night against Jonathan Boone and Tamara Behm.
Becker claimed nearly 41 percent of the votes, garnering 631 votes to Boone’s 491 and Behm’s 427.
Becker, whose wife, Debbie, is administrative secretary at Tonganoxie Elementary School, will take the at-large position currently held by Mildred McMillon, a longtime board member who also served at one time on the state board. McMillon announced in December she would not seek re-election.
Running unopposed in the election were incumbents Kathy Baragary, Leana Leslie and Diane Truesdell.
Tonganoxie school bond issue
Tonganoxie USD 464 voters soundly said “no” to a $26.9 million bond issue Tuesday.
The bond issue, which if passed would have funded a new intermediate school as well as high school and elementary school upgrades, failed with “no” votes making up about 62 percent of the total, 1,111-629.
A group opposed to the current bond issue, The Committee for the Kids, organized in the final weeks before the election with the message that the district needed a new elementary school but should not use the proposed plan.
Proponents of the bond issue, the Quality for Kids campaign, contended that renovations at the high school were necessary for security purposes in addition to overcrowding at the elementary school.
The last bond issue, which funded a new middle school and upgrades to the high school and elementary school, passed in 2004. The last bond issue before 2004 was in the late 1980s when a new junior high — now part of the high school campus — was built.
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