Saturday's Internet Edition, 08:22 PM, May 17, 2008.
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Instead, incumbent Larry Heath won reelection after he drew a “Jack” and Randy Martin drew a “6” during a cutting of the cards conducted at 9 p.m. the following evening at the district office.
“I was on the phone the entire day following the election to figure out what could be done,” said district manager Randy Roth. “I got on the phone with the county, the state and attorneys to figure out what we do in the case of the tie. We didn’t have any bylaws or regulations governing such an event and we were told to come up with an arrangement that was agreeable between both Larry and Randy.”
Prior to the drawing of the cards, other options that were pondered included the flipping of a coin and drawing lots.
“But [drawing lots] is somewhat of a pain because we had to have exactly the same size piece of paper, folded exactly the same way and written with the same kind of number,” said district member Clay Dawkins.
Both Heath and Martin agreed to the method and hands were shaken with no hard feelings afterward.
“It was quite the race,” Heath said.
Martin added, “I just want to be a part of this community and help it along and this election helped move it forward.”
Byers businessman Wil Chase stated some displeasure with the election because his business, Byers General Store, wasn’t allowed a vote despite being on the Byers water system.
“They wouldn’t let me have a proxy vote,” Chase stated.
Municipal attorneys told The I-70 Scout that any sort of corporation is not allowed to vote in special district elections.
“Now, if I and another individual own a piece of property on the Byers Water system and we are both listed as owners, we both have a vote, but once you incorporate or become an LLC, under state statute, there is no vote,” one attorney said, on the condition of anonymity.
Doug Lippitt won the first vacancy with 102 votes, followed by Heath and Martin with 73 apiece.
“We had to call the election judges back in and not only did they recount, they recounted them a second time,” said board secretary Joe Frick. “It was a long night that Tuesday.”
Other vote getters were Bill Dawkins with 38; Chris Rino, 35; and Shirley Gunter, 10.
“We had 172 total voters — 146 that walked in and 26 that mailed in the ballot,” Roth said. “That’s the largest turnout we’ve had. Two years ago we had 131 voters and four years ago we were at 64. This was a great turnout and it shows great interest in the town.”