Weatherly area voting

Positions on the Weatherly Area School District Board of Education and the Weatherly Borough Council were determined in the only contested races in Northern Carbon County during Tuesday’s General Election.

There were no contested races in Banks, Lausanne, Lehigh and Packer townships and Beaver Meadows and East Side boroughs.

Weatherly School Board

Five seats on the Weatherly School Board were filled by the voters, including four four-year terms and one two-year term.

In the four-year balloting, three candidates cross-filed on both the Democratic and Republican tickets while the fourth and fifth candidates basically ran against each other.

The cross-filed candidates who won terms are Shay A. Wagner, Brian J. O’Donnell and Chad M. Obert, who tallied 712, 699 and 636 votes, respectively. Winning the fourth position was Republican Girard A. Fewins Sr., who garnered 628 votes and outdistanced Democrat Melissa C. McGee, who had 401 votes.

In the balloting for the two-year term, O’Donnell, who appeared on the Republican ballot, won over Wagner, a Democratic candidate, by a margin of 574 to 335.

The district includes Lausanne, Lehigh and Packer townships and East Side and Weatherly boroughs.

Weatherly borough

In the borough balloting, five candidates ran for four four-year terms, including three who appeared on both ballots because of winning Democratic and Republican nominations in the Primary.

The trio of cross-filed candidates winning seats included Theresa D’Andrea, Jeffrey Miller and Harold “Chipper” Farrow. D’Andrea topped the ballot with 349 votes, followed by Miller with 328 and Farrow with 290.

For the fourth position, Republican Norman Richie won over Democrat Leslie Moyer by a margin of 261 to 208.

Deborah A. Kohler, a Republican, was unopposed for the four-year term as tax collector and collected 391 complimentary votes from borough voters.

Hazleton School Board

In the only other contested race in northern Carbon County, voters in Banks Township and Beaver Meadows Borough participates in the Hazleton school board balloting, where five candidates ran for four four-year terms. The winners will be decided upon the tabulation of the Luzerne County area voting polls in that district.

In Banks Township and Beaver Meadows, Linda DeCosmo, Ed Shemansky and Bob Mehalick, who were cross-filed on both the Democratic and Republican ballots, tallied 215, 197 and 189, respectively, Democrat Robert W. Childs garnered 210 votes and Republican Alexander C. Van Hoekelen tallied 177 votes.

Banks Township

There were no contests in Banks Township as three candidates, all Democrats, were unopposed. They include Charles J. Schalles, who was seeking re-election to a six-year term on the board of supervisors and received 173 complimentary votes; Marian C. Lockwood, who collected 175 token votes to succeed longtime tax collector Irene Makowiec, who is retiring, for a four-year term; and Joseph R. Bodnar Jr., who received 177 votes as an unchallenged candidate for the six-year term on the township’s board of auditors.

Beaver Meadows

Beaver Meadows Mayor Jeffrey S. Bobish, a Democrat, won re-election to another four-year term in that office without opposition. He tallied 97 “comp” votes.

In the borough council race, three four-year terms were available, but there were only two candidates. Democrat Robert J. Cryder III received 86 votes and Republican James G. Leonard collected 80 complimentary votes.

Mary Ellen Hines, a Republican running unopposed for a four-term as the town’s tax collector, received 111 votes to top the borough’s ballot.

Lausanne Township

There was a shortage of candidates in Lausanne Township. Two seats on the township’s board of supervisors — one for six years and the other for a four-year term — were up for grabs. Democrat Agnes K. Klynowsky ran unopposed for the six-year term and received 30 complimentary votes. There were no candidates for the two-year term.

Tax collector Carol Tulay, a Democrat, garnered 31 votes in winning re-election with opposition to another four-year term in that office.

The township voters were supposed to elect two auditors, for six-year and two-year terms, however, there were no candidates for posts.

Lehigh Township

There were only two candidates on the Lehigh Township ballot, and both are Republicans. They are Lenny Weston Jr., who received 67 votes for the six-year term on the township’s board of supervisors, and longtime tax collector Teresa Barna, who sought another four-year term in that office and who topped the township ballot with 99 token votes.

There were no candidates for the six-year term on the board of auditors, nor the four-year term on the same board.

Packer Township

Packer Township also had only two candidates on the ballot.

Both Republicans, they are Adam Nyer, who received 223 votes while running for the six-year term on the township’s board of supervisors, and Valerie Kane, who collected 253 token votes while seeking the four-year term as tax collector.

No one sought the six-year term on the township’s board of auditors.

East Side

Four Republicans who appeared on the East Side Borough ballot were all unchallenged.

They include Colleen Donlin, who ran for the four-year term as mayor and received 32 complimentary votes; Helen Jones and Elizabeth Berger, who tallied 31 and 29 token votes, respectively, while seeking four-year terms on the borough council, where three seats were up for grabs, and Lisa Jones, who sought the four-year term as tax collector and who tallied 38 complimentary votes.

Editor’s Note: The vote totals reported in this story do not necessarily include the results of absentee votes. The county elections bureau reported the vote totals are unofficial and subject to the tabulations of the absentee ballots that were not able to be counted in some races last night due to technical difficulties with scanners used to count the absentee ballots.