First Drip
First Drip (9/16/15): Election results are in, Democratic mayoral candidates to go into run-off
PostedByRyan Pitkin
on Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 12:08 PM
In yesterday's mayoral primaries, Edwin Peacock took the Republican nomination for the second time in a row while Democratic candidate Jennifer Roberts and current Mayor Dan Clodfelter will enter a run-off election in October. Roberts got 35.77 percent of the vote, well short of the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off. Clodfelter received 25.78 percent of the vote and David Howard finished third among Democrats with 23.70 percent of the vote.
In the contested city council elections, voters sent three incumbents back to the November general elections. Winners included LaWana Mayfield, who beat challenger Warren Turner, whose seat she took in District 3 four years ago. In District 2, Al Austin fended off Democratic challenger Steven Jones and will now face Republican Justin Dunn in the November election. John Autry of District 5 won his primary, and therefore will keep his seat, as he faces no Republican opposition.
In the at-large city council election, two incumbents, Vi Lyles and Claire Fallon, were among the four that will move ahead to the general elections. Also among the top four vote getters in the field of 12 were Julie Eiselt, founder of Neighbors for a Safer Charlotte, and James "Smuggie" Mitchell, a former city council member who ran for mayor in the Democratic primary against Patrick Cannon in 2013.
Yesterday, the North Carolina Senate voted 33 to 16 to approve a state budget well after the fiscal year has begun. The vote was along party lines, but complaints were focused more on the way the budget was passed as opposed to what the money was spent on. Democrats pointed out that, despite ignoring budget deadlines for months, once Republicans did write out a budget, they pushed it through without giving anyone ample time to read it. The 500-page budget, negotiated by a small amount of Republican legislators, was delivered to other lawmakers for review late Monday night, just 15 hours before they were to vote on it.
Surf City Police Chief Mike Halstead announced his retirement at an emergency meeting yesterday following posting on his personal social media a long rant against the Black Lives Matter movement in which he says blacks, white and Mexicans need police and "we don't need you," and makes references to a "murderous society," including a New Black Panther movement that he believes wants to kill whites and cops. "We are ready for you," Halsead wrote. "You take one of us and there will be 100 to step up and end you."