Merrell captures County Commissioner seat

By DUSTIN ENSINGER

For The Sun­bury News

Polit­i­cal new­comer Gary Mer­rell emerged vic­to­ri­ous Tues­day in his first ever gen­eral elec­tion race.

Mer­rell, the for­mer Delaware Gazette/Sunbury News pub­lisher, defeated Demo­c­rat John Hart­man 65 per­cent to 35 per­cent based on com­plete but unof­fi­cial results with the Delaware County Board of Elections.

“I really don’t know how to say how much I appre­ci­ate the sup­port of vot­ers across the county,” he said.

Mer­rell will take office in Jan­u­ary, replac­ing out­go­ing Com­mis­sioner Tommy Thomp­son, whom he defeated in the March Repub­li­can pri­mary election.

Ken O’Brien, whose debates with his fel­low Delaware County com­mis­sion­ers have drawn crit­i­cism from some, on Tues­day won a sec­ond and final term to the board.

O’Brien defeated Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­date Richard Bird 66 per­cent to 34 per­cent based on com­plete but unof­fi­cial results com­piled by the Delaware County Board of Elections.

“I want to thank my wife and fam­ily that helped so much,” O’Brien said. “I am very hum­bled and very thank­ful.” He attrib­uted his vic­tory to the “hard work of a lot of good people.”

Mer­rell said he will be the best pre­pared com­mis­sioner to ever take office on his first day and has been doing his home­work by being a nearly con­stant pres­ence at board of com­mis­sioner meet­ings. He has also met with each of the elected offi­cials in the county and most of the depart­ment heads. He has also toured most of the county’s facilities.

“I’ve done about all I can to pre­pare myself,” he said.

With more than 30 years of busi­ness expe­ri­ence, Mer­rell believes he will bring some­thing to the board of com­mis­sion­ers that has been absent in recent years. Namely, after work­ing in the news­pa­per indus­try for years, Mer­rell said he will bring a “ques­tion atti­tude to the board.”

“All deci­sions will be based on what’s good for the county in the long term and the short term,” he said.

Although he has no spe­cific agenda, he plans to focus on elim­i­nat­ing dupli­ca­tion of ser­vices in the county in an effort to save tax­pay­ers money.

“We need to find a way to do what’s best for the county and avoid dupli­ca­tion of ser­vices,” he said.

His oppo­nent, Hart­man, said his defeat came down to the demo­graph­ics of the county.

“The dif­fer­ence is that the Repub­li­cans have an over­whelm­ing advan­tage in Delaware County,” he said.

“It’s going to be a long process to make Delaware County a two-party county but I think it would be in the best inter­est of the county to be more bipartisan.”

Despite the loss, Hart­man believes that his idea of char­ter gov­ern­ment reform, the issue he cam­paigned on, has gained some trac­tion. He also said he plans to con­tinue to be engaged in the community.

“I will con­tinue to do my best to advance the causes of civic improve­ment and do my part to try to make Delaware County a bet­ter place to live,” he said.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.