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The mid-term election of 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, most notably for the local turnout. A little over 80 percent of the registered voters in Chisago County went to the polls Tuesday.

The election ousted a longterm Congressman and sent a few other incumbents packing.

North Branch School District was handed yet another rejection from local taxpayers seeking votes to authorize raising revenue in local levies.

Chisago Lakes Schools saw one referendum question approved, but a second request was turned down.

Chisago County has a new Sheriff and it appears to be Rick Duncan. With only about 400 votes separating the two; Duncan had 10,490 and Schreck had 10,076. There were 63 write-ins for sheriff and the totals for each name were still being determined at press deadline.

Incumbent Sheriff Todd Rivard retires at the end of his term.

Additional uncertified election results at press time are:

The Eighth District House of Representatives' seat appears to be Chip Cravaack's. The GOP newcomer got 12,584 votes to Jim Oberstar's 8,660 in Chisago County. And, the districtwide tally was being reported (Tuesday morning with 744 precincts out of 804 reporting), as going to Cravaack with 130,383 congressional district votes to Oberstar's 125,731 votes.

In Minnesota State Legislative races incumbent State Senator Rick Olseen lost to the man he took the seat from a few years ago-- Sean Nienow. Olseen's vote total with all District 17 precincts reporting was 16,569. Nienow got 21,171.

Olseen, D-Harris, got 9,976 votes in Chisago County. Nienow, R-Cambridge, got 12,390.

The Minnesota House seat for District 17B (which only encompasses basically Chisago County) was wide open with incumbent Jeremy Kalin opting to not run again.

The position went to Republican Bob Barrett, with 11,023 votes districtwide. Cindy Erickson got 7,313. Curtis Lendt, running as an Independent, got 1,624.

For House seat in Dist. 17A, which includes a small chunk of Chisago County near Harris-Rush City, and then heads west into Isanti, the seat appears to have gone to Kurt Daudt. He had 1,230 votes in Chisago County. Districtwide he was reported as getting 9,840 votes.

Rob Eastlund did not file for re-election in District 17A.

In municipal races-- Wyoming will have a new mayor with incumbent Sheldon Anderson losing to Eric Peterson. Anderson had 1,009 votes and Peterson got 1,141. Council member Russ Goudge got 942 votes.

Mayors in Center City, Shafer, Harris, Lindstrom, Taylors Falls and North Branch were returned to office. The North Branch mayoral race was relatively close, with incumbent Amy Oehlers getting 1,854 to challenger John VonLange's 1,583.

In Shafer the mayoral race total was Kyle Johnson, incumbent, 173 to Heather Rosa with 111, and Jeff Behnke got 48 votes.

Lindstrom went for incumbent mayor Keith Carlson with 1,203 votes. Council members Roger Lindgren and Joe Wishy got 487 and 187 respectively. (Wishy announced his withdrawal too late to change the ballot.)

In Chisago City incumbent mayor Don Taylor did not run for re-election and Bob Gustafson won that seat, with 1,169 votes. Council member Larry Parker got 771.

In Stacy the incumbent mayor did not file. Their new mayor will be Mark Utecht, who got 240 votes. Lisa Rawlings got 169 votes.

Mayors Mike Buchite in Taylors Falls, Jill Behnke in Center City and Diane Miller in Harris sought re-election, were not challenged and will continue to serve.

County Board races

There was only one race for a County Board seat this cycle. The even-numbered districts are staggered to come up on even-number election years, with odd-number Board District seats up for election odd-number years. Commissioner Ben Montzka Dist. 4 was unchallenged.

In District Two incumbent Rick Greene won over challenger Katherine Johnson. Greene got 2,244 to Johnson's 1,577. District Two is the area generally north of Hwy. 95 (North Branch has two commissioner districts) to Harris city limits, east to Taylors Falls and the southern line is Shafer and Shafer Township.

The county auditor was not challenged and Dennis Freed will continue to serve. (We'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the auditor's office staff who always do an exemplary job at election time and keep their sense of humor while doing so.)

County Attorney Janet Reiter was also not challenged. (And, kudos to Ms. Reiter and the department too. The communication efforts and transparency that have become hallmarks of her administration are a breath of fresh air.)

The post of County Treasurer involved a race between incumbent Lee Olson and Don Waller. Olson was returned with 14,016 votes to Waller's 4,927.

At the school districts:

There were seven people running for three positions on the North Branch School Board. The three who will serve are: incumbent Kirby Ekstrom, and newly-seated Jay Falk and Randy Westby. Incumbent Robert Jutz got 1,115 votes and Jeanne Walz, the third Board member did not file. Other candidates Jaye Kruckeberg came in with 1,777, Robert Newman had 1,619, William Dial 1,453.

In the North Branch school referendum balloting the results were: on the first question for $350 per pupil unit the no votes were 4,606 to 2,810 yes. North Branch had a second question for $175 per unit and that went down 4,807 to 2,562 and the third question also for $175 went down 4,825 to 2,304.

In Chisago Lakes the levy re-authorization request was okayed on a vote of 4,948 to 3,994. The district raises about $400 per pupil unit through this local levy. The Chisago Lakes District also asked for another levy for $290 per pupil unit and this was defeated 5,294 to 3,607.

The office-holders for three seats on the Chisago Lakes School Board race was still up in the air at press deadline. There were only two candidates who filed for three open seats on the Board and those two were-- Tom Lawlor and Mark Leigh.

The third seat winner was undeclared Wednesday morning. A committee was sorting and totalling 993 write-in names. Incumbent School Board members Lynn Johnson and Wade Carlson did not file for re-election. Leigh is an incumbent.

The city council member races (mayor results on the front page) are as follows:

In Center City the two incumbents were returned, Madonna Higgins got 127 and Lloyd Vetter received 148. Sharon Helgestad got 79 and Kristopher Jensen got 77.

In Chisago City Ron Swenson got 941 and one vote seperates the two next highest vote-getters for the council. Roger Trivette had 619 and Joe Sroga got 620.

Next in balloting was Angelo Rew with 454.

In Lindstrom it will be Anne Marie Brink and incumbent Curt Flug on the council. Bob Jacobson came in third with 964. Brink got 1,071 and Flug 1,036.

The Shafer Council tally was Patty Mattson 192, Matthew Dunham 152 and Patti Kowalski 132 for two seats. There was a vacancy on the council due to a recent resignation so three are being seated in Shafer, and the tally in the special election for two vacant seats went to Jesse Keeny with 183 votes. Corey Sellman got 167 and Terry Smith got 119.

In North Branch the council votes were: Ron Lindquist with 1,753, Kathy Blomquist 1,486 and Adam Anderson 1,450, John Philipsen 974. Blomquist, the incumbent and Lindquist will serve. (Philipsen is the other incumbent.)

In Taylors Falls Ross Rivard got 304 votes for council, Mary Jo Murphy 244 and Zara Kivi-Kinnunen got 177.

The Wyoming City Council race ended with Steven Zerwas geting 1,340 votes to be seated along with Dennis Williams, with 866. Roger Elmore got 871, Jerry owens 663, Mike Soule got 638, Arnold Lahd came in with 208 votes.

Other highlights from balloting included: this county has historically gone for the DFL candidates for state offices, such as governor, etc. This year, however, the Emmer GOP ticket got the most votes from Chisago County with 11,694 to Mark Dayton's DFL ticket that got 8,131.

Also in balloting for state auditor, Pat Anderson, Republican got 11,527 to Democrat Rebecca Otto's 9,474.

For Attorney General DFL candidate incumbent Lori Swanson got 10,010 votes to the GOP challenger Chris Barden's 10,516 votes.

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