For the week of December 5 - 11, 2001

Gourlay soundly wins Ketchum Council seat

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

By a solid margin Tuesday, Ketchum voters elected Baird Gourlay to Seat 1 on the Ketchum City Council in the city’s first runoff election.

Gourlay, a Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commissioner for the past two and a half years, amassed 360 votes to Anne Corrock’s 264, a 37 percent margin in Gourlay’s favor.

"I’m obviously looking forward to serving and helping," Gourlay said after the results were announced. "I’m really looking forward to it."

Of the city’s 1,969 registered voters, 626, or 32 percent, voted in the runoff election. That number is significantly smaller than the Nov. 6 election’s 56 percent turnout.

This week’s election culminated more than two months of campaigning for the two candidates, both of whom said the runoff was unnecessary and extravagant.

In the Nov. 6 election, Gourlay, Corrock and Millie Wiggins vied for Seat 1, but none of the candidates received more than 50 percent of the total votes cast for the seat. Gourlay amassed 460 votes to Corrock’s 379, an 8 percent margin in Gourlay’s favor. Wiggins drew 193 votes.

According to the city’s recently-revised election regulations, a city council candidate must obtain more than 50 percent of the votes cast to win a seat. The 50 percent mark on Nov. 6 was 516 votes.

Though the percentage changed drastically, Gourlay and Corrock were separated by approximately 100 votes in both elections.

"Pretty much the same thing occurred," Gourlay said. "It pretty much proved that we didn’t need to have a runoff. We could have been spending our time trying to solve problems instead of campaigning."

To hold a runoff is "ludicrous," he said.

Gourlay added that he has been encouraged the past several weeks about conversations he’s had with Mayor-elect Ed Simon.

"I think he wants to work on a lot of the same things I do," he said. "We just want to make Ketchum a better place to live."

Gourlay extended thanks to his supporters, "and to the opposite side, I hope I surprise them with my contributions to the community."

The Ketchum City Council will canvass the election results at a meeting at noon today at Ketchum City Hall.

 

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