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Politics & Government

Candidates React After Election Results Come In & Show Incumbents Are Out

Patch checked in with candidates for contested aldermen seats in Manchester and Town and Country after election results rolled in late Tuesday night. Read how they responded.

According to the St. Louis County Board of Elections, voter turnout for the April 3 election was 13.8 percent, with a total of 90,233 ballots cast.

Incumbents in all of the Town and Country and Manchester contested aldermen races were not reelected.

(View Election Results: )

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Town and Country - Manchester Patch contacted the candidates as the outcomes became clear Tuesday night.

In Manchester, the only contested race was for the Ward 1 alderman seat. The race was neck and neck, with challenger Barbara Stevens pulling ahead of incumbent Hal Roth with 58 percent of the votes.

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“I’m thrilled and excited to represent this fine city,” said Stevens. “My focus will be on working collectively as a team and growing together.” Stevens is a retired assistant superintendent for the State Schools for the Severely Disabled. This is her first time holding an elected office.

Incumbent Hal Roth was contacted by Patch, but he declined to comment on the race results.

Town and Country’s votes trickled in slowly on Tuesday night, with results only starting to come in after 9:30 p.m. , with all three winning candidates of contested seats being in favor of using lethal methods of control. Both incumbent aldermen, Al Gerber and Steve Fons, lost their seats on the board to challengers.

Former Town and Country mayor Richard “Skip” Mange took the Ward 1 seat vacated by Alderman Nancy Avioli. Mange ended the race with 53 percent of the vote.

“I’m very happy with the results,” Mange said. “We had a good clean race.” He disagreed that deer management was a deciding factor in Ward 1, feeling that he and his competitor Dorothy Greco Cooke didn’t vary much on their views concerning deer.

Cooke didn’t want to concede the vote until after the official results were announced, having only fallen behind Mange by 25 voters. “It’s not a decisive victory for either one of us, if it’s that close to 50-50.” She said that if the voters are so evenly divided, perhaps all is not smooth sailing in Town and Country.

In Ward 2, challenger Chuck Lenz had more decisive victory, with nearly 60 percent of the votes.

“In my opinion, the deer management philosophy I advocated was the deciding factor,” Lenz said. He said at a that he felt using sharpshooters was a less expensive as well as more effective means of controlling the deer. Lenz held the Ward 2 seat once before, from 1992 to 1993.

Ward 2 incumbent Al Gerber, who received nearly 40 percent of the vote, but still lost his seat to Lenz, said it was too early to tell if Town and Country’s deer population was the controlling factor in April’s vote. He has been outspoken about being opposed to lethal methods of deer control, but said that deer in Ward 2 are no longer a problem for residents.

Ward 3 was won by the newcomer to politics, Gussie Crawford, who had nearly 60 percent of the vote. She said deer management was a factor in the voters' decisions.

“Deer management was a very large issue,” she said, adding that she is for using sharpshooters to control the deer population. “It’s been a very interesting experience (running for office) and I enjoyed meeting all the people of Ward 3.” She joked that she’d lost several pounds hiking around her ward getting to know all the voters. Crawford is a retired nurse and avid volunteer for amateur sports, having served on the U.S. Olympic Committee and the as the president of the National Amateur Athletic Union.

Ward 3 incumbent, Alderman Steve Fons, was not available for comment Tuesday night.

Once election results are certified by the St. Louis County Board of Election 
Commissioners, winners from Tuesday's election will be sworn in. It will likely be at the late April or early May board of aldermen meetings for each city.

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