St. George Write-Ins Take All Races But One

Eight days after the election, residents and candidates in St. George have their results. According to the unofficial write-in results released this Wednesday on the St. Louis County Board of Elections website, won races for mayor and three of the four races for board of aldermen.

In each race several write-in votes were declared invalid or had been cast for the wrong write-in candidate, narrowing—and in one case eliminating—the already slim lead the write-ins had over their opponents.

Carmen Wilkerson beat incumbent mayor Mary Kaufmann, 153 to 137.

With four votes miscast or declared invalid, Jeremy Collier beat incumbent Ward 2 alderman Barbara Dierstein by only one vote, 48 to 47.

In Ward 3, two write-in ballots were declared invalid, leaving Susan Preis with only 35 votes—not enough to beat incumbent Herb Pyne’s 36.

The other seat in Ward 2, where no candidate had filed, Tina Charpentier received 46 votes, more than a scattering of other write-in names. Dianne Burns, the unchallenged incumbent alderman in Ward 1, also ran and won on the disincorporation ticket.

The loss in Ward 3 might appear to leave the pro-disincorporation candidates in a more precarious position, controlling half the board of alderman with the mayor’s tie-breaking vote. However, mayor-elect Wilkerson said she is happy to be working with Pyne, who she said was sympathetic to the disincorporation proposal.

“He’s very knowledgeable about how municipal government works. He’s a very sharp guy,” Wilkerson said. “Everyone’s excited to work with him.”

According to Wilkerson, Pyne, recreation supervisor for the parks department at Sunset Hills, is passionate about maintaining St. George’s small city park. Though Wilkerson admitted that Pyne is not yet totally convinced about disincorporation, she said that he is amenable if St. George can find an arrangement with the county to preserve the park for the neighborhood.

“Different people on this board have different issues that they are concerned about. I didn’t want to surround myself with yes-people. What we have is smart, business savvy people to work though these issues,” Wilkerson said.

Patch will have more on disincorporation and St. George politics in our ongoing series.