Another spring election and another absolutely pathetic voter turnout at the polls.
The overall County-wide turnout of registered voters was 12.99 percent. This means that 87.01 percent of registered voters couldn’t be bothered with making their voices heard in regards to boards and councils and issues that on a daily basis affect our kids' education, the roads we drive on and the ordinances we live by.
For all of you folks who did your duty as American citizens and cast your ballot Tuesday, I salute you.
For everyone, that didn’t — don’t complain to me when an elected official does something you don’t like.
As far as the actual election results themselves, check out front page stories and our vote total on page 3 for all the nuts and bolts.
I’m buoyed a bit that for the most part the positive prevailed over the negative.
This is most notable in the R-3 School Board election, where the three incumbents turned away a challenger who spent what appears to be a considerable sum of money to try to convince R-3 patrons that the District is evil and they had better elect him to save the day.
Like I predicted last week, most R-3 patrons knew better.
I’m still intrigued by the challenger's campaign blitz, which included a robo-call and a couple of direct mail pieces. I know because I got them at my house. These things aren’t cheap and I will be very anxious to see his final campaign committee contribution/expenditure report in a few weeks.
I looked at his last report before the election and wasn’t surprised to see a nice contribution from our friends at Inside Information over in Smithville.
My guess is they aren’t the only usual suspects slinking around in this one. Case in point: that neat little postcard Park Hill patrons got in the mail last weekend.
Stay tuned.
AND THE WINNER IS
The just concluded NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament was one of the best in recent memory. It seemed just about every game came down to the last shot or the last minute and the tourney set a record for number of overtime games.
It was also one of the hardest to predict, as the final scores of our Mad March of Hoops Bracket Contest would indicate. I don’t recall one of our contests ever ending with a winning score under 100, but that’s the case this year. Check out the complete list of final standings on page A5.
Before I announce our first and second place winners, here are few more tidbits about this year’s contest.
We had 188 entries, a new record.
Only three entries picked UConn to make the final four and none of those picked the Huskies to win it, which, of course, they did.
Our two winners both picked the same title game: Florida over Kentucky.
And those winners are .... drum roll, please .... Lee Ann Fadler, first place with 96 points and Curtis Moppin, second place with 95 points. Fadler wins the grand prize of $100 and Moppin wins $50.
And now, for the important stuff: how many of you beat yours truly and claimed a free one-year subscription?
The answer would be 88, as my score of 66 wound up 89th overall.
So congrats to all those who won prizes and thanks for playing. And thanks to my son, Mitch, and Citizen ad manager Pam Ulitschan for helping me score all of those brackets.
Thanks for reading.
Lee Stubbs is owner/publisher of The Citizen. He may be reached by e-mail at editor@plattecountycitizen.com or by calling 858-5154. Follow him on Twitter @leejstubbs.