HIGHLAND — Three citizens intitiatives were soundly defeated in Tuesday's elections, but both sides agree that the issues they represented have not been resolved.
"One of the first major challenges I have is solving the issues behind the initiatives," said mayor-elect Jay W. Franson. "The real key is to get out there and get some dialogue going. It's going to be difficult, but that's what we're elected to do."
Franson defeated Blake B. Buhler — a strong supporter of the initiatives — by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent. All three initiatives were rejected by similar margins.
Initiative one, which would have made the city water board an elected body, was defeated by a 2-1 margin, 1,835 votes to 918. The second initiative, which would have allowed residents to build taller fences along property lines that border open space, was defeated by a margin of 1,654 to 1,093. The third initiative, which would require the city to place grass on certain open space areas, lost 1,789 to 964.
Franson said he was not surprised by the results, as he had perceived that many voters had problems with the specific language of the initiatives. Still, he said the issues need to be addressed and he doesn't think the two sides are as far apart as it may seem.
"I really believe there are some good solutions out there, but with the initiative process, the dialogue kind of slowed down," Franson said.
Two city council candidates who supported the initiatives — Randy Graham and David Beck, a write-in — also lost, although Graham is technically still in the race awaiting the count of provisional ballot.
Incumbent Councilman Brian Brunson won re-election with 1,239 votes, while Claudia Stillman appears to have won the second seat with 1,206 votes, 28 votes ahead of Graham.
City officials did not know how many provisional ballots were cast as of Wednesday.
Council candidate Teri Jerman had 936 votes, while Beck finished with 758.
Regardless of the outcome, Graham said he stands by his campaign platform that city officials need to listen to citizens more.
"The principle is still a good one," he said. "These initiatives came about as a result of the City Council's unwillingness to hear (citizen) concerns."
Graham said the group that sponsored the initiatives has not yet met to plan what it will do next, but he did agree with Franson that the key to solving the differences is to re-establish communication.
"If the city is willing to listen to the concerns of the citizens, this could very easily be resolved," he said.
Kara Rodriguez Reese, a citizen who supported the initiatives and helped write the argument for the open space initiative in the voter information pamphlet, expressed similar frustrations with the way the council reacted to citizens who brought the initiatives.
"Obviously (the defeat of the initiatives) is a disappointment, and it's a disappointment to have city leaders who are so unresponsive to citizens," she said.
Brunson said the city had valid concerns, and the council's perceived unresponsiveness came simply from the fact that it did not agree with the proposals.
"I think the vote demonstrated the fact that the council had concerns that these initiatives were not in the best interest of the city, and I think the vote bore that out," he said.
Now that the initiatives had been defeated, Brunson said the city needs to monitor the water board and fence issues to see if changes are necessary, but said the council needs to act quickly on the open space issue.
"We need to go back to where we were when all of this started and resurrect the open space plans with the individual subdivisions," he said. "I think the reason that open space was such a big issue is because there is a lot of dissatisfaction out there, and we need to address that in a responsible manner."
Brunson said the city needs to make transportation planning and public safety staffing high priorities as well.
Results from Tuesday's elections were not compiled until after 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. Election officials were waiting on the city's largest precinct, where election judges needed hours to count votes. Counting votes cast for the initiatives prolonged the counting process, one election official said.
E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com