West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis went out on a limb a week ago, crossing party boundaries to endorse a pair of city council candidates who weren’t Republicans.
His point: “I’m all about the team, man. I want great people who are all about the team, too.”
Did Dennis, running uncontested for his third four-year term as mayor, get what he wanted after Tuesday’s city council election?
“More or less, it looks like it,” Dennis said Tuesday night. “I look at the names up there and see a lot of people who know how to work together.”
Incumbents who ran again for West Lafayette City Council all won: Democrats Nick DeBoer, Peter Bunder and Gerald Thomas; and Republicans Gerry Keen and Steve Dietrich. The newcomers to the council will include: Democrats Larry Leverenz and David Sanders; and Republicans Norris Wang and Aseem Jha.
Those results won’t be certified until Nov. 13. Election officials still have to contact 95 West Lafayette voters who were given incorrect ballots in early voting to give them a chance to vote in the proper city council district. County Clerk Christa Coffey said she couldn’t be sure Tuesday night if there were enough votes in any of the districts to swing the results. She said she expected to know that Wednesday.
After a second term that included the historic annexation of Purdue University, Dennis ran again to keep pressing on the State Street Master Plan, a joint project with Purdue that is estimated to run between $60 million and $100 million, the development of what’s he’s called a new downtown and finding a home for city hall. Dennis’ endorsement of Thomas in the at-large race and Donnie Spencer, an independent who lost in to Jha in a three-way race in the student-heavy District 3, was still setting a tone for those who won Tuesday.
“I think very much I fit into the mix, from my point of view,” said Leverenz, a Purdue professor and athletic trainer at Purdue, who beat Republican Tom Andrew in District 4. “I support what the city is doing in general — on development along the U.S. 231 corridor, on State Street, on many things. … We might differ a little on where to put a new city hall, but that’s where the council can have a discussion.”
The city’s move from a third class city to a second class city meant a restructuring of city government, including increasing the size of the city council — from seven members to nine — with an additional district and an additional at-large member.
Sanders, a biology professor at Purdue, fill the at-large seat.
“I had a talk with John and told him I’m not running against John Dennis,” Sanders said. “If you know me, I do see myself as trying to restrain Mitch Daniels at Purdue. You know that, Mitch Daniels knows that. I make no secret about that. But that’s not how I feel about John Dennis.”
The city council drew District 3 so it centered on a cluster of Purdue residence halls.
On Tuesday, those campaigning for the three candidates told about the struggle to find votes in a district where many potential voters are freshman or sophomores and hadn’t bothered to update their voter registration information in time for an off-year municipal election.
“We’re getting a lot of, ‘I’m not registered,’” said Kristin Jones, who was campaigning outside the Purdue Memorial Union for her daughter, Democrat Joelle Jones, Tuesday afternoon. She said the campaign had registered more than 600 people in the district in time for the city election.
Around the way, a stack of pizza boxes piled up behind Spencer, who set up a table outside the Stewart Center on Tuesday. Beside a sign touting his campaign, Spencer said he was giving away slices of pizza to anyone who wanted one.
“If they ask, ‘What’s going on?’, I’m telling them about the election and where they can vote,” Spencer said. “A lot are asking. So that’s good.”
Asked about the legality of the tactic, Coffey said that as long as Spencer was outside the 50-foot “chute” outside the polling place, “it is not an issue for the election process unless he is giving the pizza in return for votes.”
In the end, Jha won.
“Right off the bat, I’m satisfied the voters put their faith in me,” Jha said. “I want to thank my opponents. It was actually great for me, getting out the vote, even if though it was a huge time commitment.”
As for not getting the mayor’s endorsement, even though they are both Republicans?
“I told my team to worry about what we could do, not what someone else said we could do,” Jha said. “I feel I’m ready.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.jconline.com/story/news/2015/11/03/wl-mayor-gets-his-team-more-less/75087820/