11-07-2023 11:59pm

City of Saline Voters Choose Lesch, Ceo and Harmount

City of Saline voters elected Chuck Lesch, Jack Ceo and Jenn Harmount to city council in the Nov. 7 election.

Ceo will continue to serve on council. Lesch and Harmount will replace Jim Dell'Orco and Kevin Camero-Sulak, who chose not to seek re-election.

The winners' two-year terms begin in January.

Lesch was the top vote-getter, receiving 1,130 votes. Harmount was second with 1,099 and Ceo was third with 1,083 votes.

Christen Mitchell, who served two terms on council before challenging Brian Marl for mayor, was fourth in 864 votes. Brian Cassise was fifth with 586 votes.

Just 47 votes separated the top three vote-getters. There was a clear difference between third and fourth (219) and a wider gulf between fourth and fifth (278).

There were 1,809 votes cast for a voter turnout of 23.24 percent. That number was lower than Chelsea (27.68 percent), Manchester (35.88), Milan (26.61 percent). Turnout in Manchester was likely boosted by the school proposal and Milan's turnout might have been boosted by a library proposal.

In 2021, the last off-year council election, there were four candidates for three seats and turnout was 20.68 percent in the city. There were 1,565 votes. In 2019, there four candidates for three seats and voter turnout was 16.76 percent. So this was the highest turnout for an off-year council election since 2017, when 25.62 percent of voters cast ballots. That was an election boosted by two school proposals.

Turnout in Salne precincts 1 and 2 was 26.94 percent compared to 20.27 in precincts 3 and 4.

For the five candidates, there 4,762 votes - with nearly 3,209 cast via absentee ballot.