District 3 voters sent a clear message to their Denton City Council representative Jesse Davis on Saturday night when they not only voted to recall him, but also voted to replace him with former at-large council member Paul Meltzer.
Meltzer received nearly 70% of the vote while 51% of voters voted to recall Davis on May 6.
Meltzer wasn’t the only familiar face to return to council. District 1 incumbent Vicki Byrd defeated Birdia Johnson for another term.
In District 4, former Justice of the Peace Joe Holland defeated challengers Stephanie Neuharth and Donald Thornton with 52% of the vote.
Meltzer’s win offers hope to the more than 32,000 voters who voted last November to decriminalize misdemeanor amounts of marijuana in Denton, only to face a city manager and a few council members hellbent on ignoring their will.
“District 3 voters have made themselves heard loud and clear in this election,” Meltzer said. “They want representation that listens and that will represent their values in council votes — on equality and inclusiveness, on a balanced approach to development that respects our environmental inheritance and, yes, on implementing Proposition B as other Texas cities have done.”
Saturday night’s results for Meltzer and Byrd not only reaffirms the message voters sent in early November to the city.
It also seems to be a wake-up call for Mayor Gerard Hudspeth, former Mayor Chris Watts — who now serves as an at-large council member — and City Manager Sara Hensley, all of whom have been refusing to fully implement Proposition B, which was duly enacted by voters seven months ago.
Early voting results for candidates were released at 7 p.m. Saturday as soon as the general election polls closed, and they offered some indication where the rest of the night would be heading.
In District 1, Byrd received 69% of early votes, with 791 ballots compared to Johnson’s 31% (359 votes).
District 3 showcased Meltzer with a clear lead over Davis and Stephen Dillenberg. Meltzer received 57% of the vote with 1,279 votes. Davis had 41% of the vote with 914. Dillenberg nearly broke 2% with 34 votes.
Davis, however, was winning his recall election at that time by 100 votes at 1,118, compared to the 1,017 of the early voters seeking to remove him. By the time the final votes were tallied, 51.8% of votes were cast in favor of recalling him.
District 4 was the uncertain one. More than 8,000 residents showed up to recall their former council member Alison Maguire in early November.
During early voting, nearly 2,000 voters, 54%, cast their votes for Holland. Neuharth received 34% of the vote with 1,276 votes, while Thornton scored 11% of early voters with 438.
The final results from the Denton County Elections Administration arrived a few hours later amid a thunderstorm and reports of another mass shooting in Texas. This time eight people, including children, were killed at an outlet mall in Allen, according to a Saturday evening Texas Tribune report.
District 1
- Byrd: 1,069 votes (69.55%)
- Johnson: 468 votes (30.45%)
District 3
- Meltzer: 1,840 votes (60.33%)
- Davis: 1,147 votes (37.61%)
- Dillenberg: 63 votes (2.07%)
District 4
- Holland: 2,512 votes (52.38%)
- Neuharth: 1,704 votes (35.53%)
- Thornton: 580 votes (12.9%)
Proposition A (Jesse Davis recall election)
- For: 1,518 votes (51.81%)
- Against: 1,412 votes (48.19%)
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