Tri-Cities candidates hold on to razor thin margins to earn spots on November ballot
Just a handful of votes in the Aug. 1 primary decided the second spot on the November ballot for a Franklin County race, and a Richland candidate won by less than 1% of the vote.
While the Richland school board recall dominated this year’s primary, there were still a few races that needed narrowing ahead of the general election.
Most of those races had clear leaders for the top two spots, which now move on to the Nov. 7 ballots, but two came down to the wire.
A small city council race in Franklin County was the closest with just six votes separating second and third place.
Connell
On election night Preston Hart had a clear lead over his opponents Patrice Hebel and Stephanie Hallman. When votes were certified Tuesday morning, Hart had managed to take 51% of the total, with 140 votes.
Hebel, who was tied with Hallman at 48 votes on election night, managed to win six votes more than Hallman for a chance to compete against Hart for the Position 5 seat in November.
Hebel received 68 votes to Hallman’s 62.
Hart is a Washington State University graduate with more than 20 years of experience in business management, according to his voter’s pamphlet profile.
Hebel is the general manager of the M&M Hotel and a board member for the Connell Chamber of Commerce.
Connell is a community of around 5,000 in northern Franklin County, known for agriculture, food processing and the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center.
Richland City Council
While the Richland schools races weren’t particularly close, the city council race certainly was.
Kurt Maier had an early election night lead with 48.5% of the vote, but as more ballots came in his totals dropped by about a percent and the race for second place remained razor thin.
Kent Madsen and and Mark Newman were neck and neck with Madsen up by just 36 votes on election night.
Since then, Madsen has managed to extend his lead just wide enough to avoid a mandatory recount. Madsen secured a chance to run against Maier with 3,631 votes to Newman’s 3,517, a difference of just 0.83% in a race with 13,828 ballots cast.
The Richland City Council is the policy-making authority for the city and oversees the city manager, who manages day-to-day operations.
The city, population 63,320, has 580 employees and a $304 million budget to provide municipal services, including law enforcement, emergency services, parks, planning, public works, utilities, the library, capital projects, street maintenance and economic development.
Maier is a computer engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and previously served on the Richland Public Library board. His wife, Francesca, serves on the city’s planning commission.
Kent Madsen, who worked for companies such as General Electric, spent 14 years on the Richland Planning Commission.
The winner of the November election will serve either a two- or four-year term. Richland has an unusual system of setting terms that ensures at least four of seven seats are on the ballot every other year.
The candidate who wins by the smallest margin receives a two-year term. The rest receive four-year ones. Richland council members are elected at large. Individual seats do not represent specific neighborhoods or districts within the city.
Staff Writer Wendy Culverwell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 15, 2023 at 12:58 PM.
