by Leah Justice

leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

The Town of Tryon has a new mayor and one new commissioner as mayor Jim Wright lost his seat Tuesday, Nov. 3 to Alan Peoples, according to unofficial results from the Polk County Board of Elections.

Crys Armbrust, a new candidate was the top vote getter for Tryon commissioner, while incumbent commissioner and mayor pro-tem Roy Miller retained his seat.

In Saluda, the top vote getter for commissioner was newcomer Stanley Walker along with incumbent commissioner Leon Morgan. Incumbent commissioner Lynn Cass was a contender as a write-in candidate, but failed to secure enough votes to retain her seat. Cass did not file for re-election but ran as a write-in candidate after candidate Karen Bultman dropped out of the race a couple of weeks ago. Bultman still received 14 votes in the race, according to unofficial results.

In Columbus, mayor Eric McIntyre retained his seat after running unopposed this year. Incumbent council members Margaret Metcalf and Richard Hall also retained their seats along with newcomer Mark Phillips.

The Tryon Mayor race included 184 total votes for Peoples and 149 votes for Wright. Peoples is a former Tryon Mayor and Wright just finished his first term.

For town commissioners, Armbrust had a total of 215 votes, with Miller receiving 147 votes. Doug Arbogast fell behind the winners with 121 votes and Baker received 114 votes.

In Columbus, McIntyre received a total of 44 votes to retain his seat for mayor.

For Columbus council, Metcalf was the high vote getter with 42 votes with Hall coming in second with 39 votes and Phillips clinching a seat with 24 votes. Candidate Emily Gage lost the bid for Columbus Council with 13 votes.

In Saluda the high vote getter was Walker with 136 votes with Morgan retaining his seat with 110 votes. Cass received a total of 67 write-in votes. Cass would have received 69 votes, but two votes cast for her misspelled her name, which makes them ineligible.

There was one vote for Tryon Mayor for Donald Duck as a write-in. Tryon commissioner write-ins included for John Vining and Nikki Gary. In Saluda there was a write-in vote for Wylie Rauschenbach.

Tuesday night’s results  are unoffical until the official count is done by the Polk County Board of Elections on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The results obtained on Tuesday included early voting and election day totals only. There were six provisional votes cast and one curbside vote with those votes to be included later this week. No result in any town will change with the inclusion of the provisional and curbside votes.

Tryon had the highest number of votes cast with Saluda second and Columbus last.

Look for more details this week regarding Polk County’s municipal election in the Bulletin as well as at www.tryondailybulletin.com.

Results can also be found online for Polk and other North Carolina counties through the state board of election’s website at www.enr.ncsbe.gov.