Story By John Mann
The Guntersville City Council met for another special session on Tuesday morning regarding the recent municipal elections, where after hearing from city attorney Jim Beard they voted unanimously to go ahead with the planned mayoral run off election on September 23.
The mayoral race between incumbent Leigh Dollar and Jeff McLaughlin has been hotly contested from the minute the polls closed on August 26. At the end of election day Dollar was leading by only one vote, and after the seven provisional ballots were counted in a special council session on Friday it had narrowed down to an even tie.
Tuesday’s meeting started with McLaughlin unexpectedly taking the podium ahead of any discussion to offer forth a compromise: split the term, with Dollar holding office until November of 2027 where she would then resign and the council would appoint him to the position.
“What if we came together for the good of the city and reached an agreement which reflects the will of the voters,” McLaughlin said. “It would save the city the cost of another election, which I believe is between fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, it would save the city the cost of potential legal bills which would be far higher than the cost of the election. It would give us a way forward, it would be a fair, common sense solution and it would be good for Guntersville take a risk in the proposal I’m about to make is me.”
There was no further discussion of the idea as Beard took the podium to try and provide the council with the legal route to finalize the election. According to him following the adjournment of Friday’s session it was brought to the council’s attention that the runoff election was not authorized under the law.
The current stature for dealing with a tie in a municipal election, Alabama code section 11-46-55, has a gap where it neither requires nor prohibits a run off election in a municipal tie where there are only two candidates. As Beard put it there is “essentially no mechanism to declare a winner.”
Beard offered up three potential solutions to the council. One: do nothing and proceed with the runoff as planned, two: vote to cancel the runoff and have a vote by the council to declare a winner or three: cancel the runoff and then do nothing, which would leave the mayoral seat vacant when the current term ran out and leave it up to the council to appoint someone.
“My contention would simply be that each and every one of us voted in the election on August 26, if we take another vote now we have engaged in a second vote in an election and in fact would be violating the Constitution,” District 6 Councilman Rich Russell said. “I think that the action of the city council, while I was not present due to work requirements, to move forward with a run-off election is the most fair, fundamentally fair, and equitable.”
After hearing from Beard District 2 Councilman Larry Wilson put forward the motion to continue with the planned runoff election, seconded by District 3 Councilman John Myers. The motion was passed unanimously by the council.
Though not on the agenda Wilson also made two additional motions regarding voter data in city elections. He wanted to acquire the voter results broken down by district in the August 26 election, as well as in future elections.
“I would offer that the data is in the system,” Russell said. “It would cost money to get it, I think it would be worthwhile to spend the money to obtain the information just simply because all of us may be in a position where we have to make another decision. Understanding that and when the runoff election is held we would certainly want to have those results tallied by district. If we’re in a representative democracy we represent our constituents in our district and if I was called upon to make that vote I would want to know what the constituents in my district decided.”
The first motion which called for the data in both the previous election and future elections was defeated on a vote of 4-3, with Mayor Dollar having recused herself from the session before it started. Wilson then put forward a second motion asking for the information only in future elections, which this time passed unanimously.
The run off election for mayor of Guntersville will be held as planned on September 23, with the Guntersville Rec Center on Sunset Drive as the polling location. The last day to register to vote is September 18, which is also the last day to vote absentee. Absentee ballots are available at the Municipal Building in Guntersville.
The Guntersville city council holds regular sessions on the first and third Monday of each month at 12 pm and 5 pm respectively. The next meeting will be September 15 at 5 pm. Council meetings are open to the public.
