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Final results from the Supervisor of Elections Office show that John M. Kostelnick lost by too many votes for a free challenge.
By RAGHURAM VADAREVU
Published November 4, 2004
CRYSTAL RIVER - The recount that City Council candidate John M. Kostelnick said he was going to call for in his narrow loss to incumbent John R. Kendall will not start, after all.
Kostelnick, a political newcomer, lost to Kendall 803-779, according to final results from the Supervisor of Elections Office.
The difference represented 1.5 percent of the 1,582 total votes cast in the Seat 1 council race. According to state law, an automatic recount would be triggered only if the margin of victory was .05 percent - or roughly eight votes in this race.
"This does not fall into that," Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill said.
There are two other ways to trigger a recount. A candidate who believes there was fraud in the election can petition the canvassing board. If the petition is found to be valid, the county would conduct the recount.
A candidate also can pay for a recount, Gill said.
Kostelnick is not alleging fraud, and he said a recount would be too expensive.
"We've had a couple of people who've offered to pay for it, but we're not going to do it," he said.
If Kostelnick had requested a recount, Gill said it would not have been simple. She said the elections staff would have to go back through 35,519 early and absentee ballots cast in the county in search of roughly 840 ballots cast for the Seat 1 council race.
Voters interviewed at the City Hall polling site on Tuesday suggested they were not pleased with the city's controversial April annexation of 500-plus acres just south of the city limits. Kendall and council member Kitty Ebert, who lost to former city police Chief Jim Farley, voted for it.
Muriel Smith, 67, a former newspaper editor, told the Citrus Times she voted against Kendall and Ebert because they "rushed" into the annexation. Smith voted for council member Susan M. Kirk, who beat Phil Jannarone, Kostelnick and Farley.
"They struck me as fairly honest," she said, referring to Kirk, Kostelnick and Farley. "They all do their homework."
Kirk said the support for herself and Farley - both well known in the community - and the strong showing from newcomer Kostelnick may suggest that voters want the council to slow down and adopt a more deliberative style when making major policy decisions, Kirk said.
"Government moves slow enough. I don't want it to slow down to a snail's pace," she said. "But you want to give serious consideration. You have to watch for the falling dominoes, the law of unintended consequences."
Kirk was the lone vote on the council against the annexation. She said the council didn't have a clear picture of the impact on city services of any future development in the annexed area.
Kirk said that Farley's addition will inject more "analytical thinking" on the council.
"I think the community wanted a change," Farley said. "People want more thoughtfulness. There's no hurry."
During the campaign for council Seat 1, Kendall counted a cheaper, privatized trash pickup service, a professional city staff and annexation among many accomplishments during his tenure on the council. He took an entirely different message from Tuesday's vote.
"The voters had a choice," he said. "They have voted to continue the process to bring good government to Crystal River."
[Last modified November 4, 2004, 00:41:23]
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