by Joseph Back

The Pierce County ballot for the upcoming elections in April is filling up. For the City of Prescott, Mayor Dave Hovel has filed his reelection papers to chair the city council, along with three others for elected city office, as has Steve Sizemore for the Prescott District School Board.

Meanwhile over in the county capital and Village of Ellsworth, three incumbents and one other person have filed to fill offices in local government, with both Ellsworth district school board incumbents also refiling for ballot candidacy. As for the Pierce County Board of Supervisors, two spots are

See ELECTION, Page 2 currently slated to have nobody on the ballot, as the incumbents have filed non-candidacy papers with no replacement, with no contested races for the County Board as a whole.

Besides Mayor Hovel refiling, incumbent Darlyn Hintz has refiled for her seat as Alderperson at Large on the Prescott City Council. Galen Seipel has filed non-candidacy for the third and fourth ward alderperson, while Tom Oss has filed papers for Seipel’s council seat. As for city posts, Prescott’s current Municipal Judge Patrick Eich has filed for inclusion on the Spring ballot.

As for the Village of Ellsworth, Richard Sweig, Michael Steele, and Richard Hines are running for re-election as Village Trustees, with one new candidate Scott Feuerhelm also running for a Village Trustee position. As to the Ellsworth District School Board, there are two open seats, with Gary Kressin and Kurt Buckner running for re-election. No other candidates have filed papers.

Finally, the entire 17 member Pierce County Board of Supervisors is up for reelection, with incumbent Robert Mercord (Prescott) filing non-candidacy papers with no replacement, along with incumbent LeRoy Peterson (River Falls), who has also filed non-candidacy papers with no replacement. In the third and fourth districts, Jon Aubart and Ruth Wood (both from River Falls) have declared candidacy, with Aubart already having filed his nomination papers as of January 6th. The deadline to return ballot nomination papers was still open as of press time.

As for the fifth and sixth district seats on the county board, Cecil Bjork (River Falls) has declared his candidacy, while Michael Kahlow (River Falls) has received papers but not returned them at inquiry time. In the seventh and eighth district for the Pierce County Supervisor’s Board, Scott Bjork (River Falls) and Dean Bergseng (River Falls) have declared candidacy, while Bergseng has already submitted his nomination papers. In the ninth and tenth districts, Paula L. Lugar (Spring Valley) and Rodney Gilles (Elmwood) have both declared candidacy and returned their nomination papers, while in the eleventh and twelfth districts Neil Gulbranson and Dale Auckland (both from Ellsworth) have done the same.

For the thirteenth district, incumbent Dan Reis (Ellsworth) has filed papers of non-candidacy, while new candidate Daniel Puhrmann (Hager City) has declared his own candidacy for Reis’ seat, there being no other challengers.

In the fourteenth district Bill E. Schroeder (also Hager City) has received his papers, while in the fifteenth Jerry Kosin (Prescott) has declared his candidacy and returned nomination papers.

For the sixteenth district seat on the Pierce County Board, Jeff Holst (Hager City) has declared candidacy and returned his nomination papers. Last but not least, new candidate Mel Pittman (Plum City) has declared his candidacy for the seventeenth district to replace Paul Shingledecker (Maiden Rock), who has filed papers of non-candidacy. With the exceptions of Daniel Puhrman in the thirteenth district and Mel Pittman in the seventeenth, all those who are running for the Pierce County Board of Supervisors are current incumbents—but what to do about those two empty seats, for the first and second districts? If no one takes or returns papers for these seats they will become write ins on the ballot. After all, public service may not be all that glamorous, but somebody’s got to do it. Maybe you?