Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Jim Jarratt
Jim Jarratt will be Granbury’s next mayor, but the question of who will take possession of the Place 5 seat on the City Council will have to be settled in a runoff.
None of the three candidates in that race won the required 50% of the vote, plus one in unofficial vote tallies to win the seat outright in Tuesday’s special election.
The referendum was triggered by the resignation of Mayor Nin Hulett, who has served as Granbury’s mayor since 2013.
The Place 5 seat was on the ballot because the person who held it, Tony Mobly, was required to relinquish it in order to run for the mayor’s spot.
Jarratt won more than 51% of the vote in the four-person race. Mobly scored the second highest number of votes, followed by Joanie Keays and Charles Nangle.
In the Place 5 competition, Steven Vale received the most votes but will be in a runoff with Cathy Reidy. The other candidate in that race was Richard Hoefs.
In the mayoral race, early voting and absentee numbers had Jarratt ahead with 499 votes, or 48.17% of the 1,036 ballots cast.
Early voting numbers for the other candidates were as follows: Mobly, 410/39.58%; Keays, 72/6.95%; and Nangle, 55/5.31%.
When Election Day totals were added to those numbers, the breakdown was: Jarratt, 755/51.08%; Mobly, 537/36.33%; Keays, 101/6.83%; and Nangle, 85/5.75%.
Jarratt currently serves on the city’s Capital Improvements Advisory Committee and has served on its Municipal Utilities Advisory Board (MOAB). Before retiring, he worked for several large corporations, including Frito-Lay, Citibank and Johnson & Johnson.
In the Place 5 race, early voting totals showed Vale ahead with 439 votes (43.86%). He was followed by Reidy, with 289 of the ballots cast (28.87%). Hoefs received 273 votes (27.27%).
Final numbers after the polls closed showed the following breakdown: Vale, 598/42.11%; Reidy, 425/29.93% and Hoefs, 397/27.96%.
Of Granbury's 7,594 registered voters, 1,036 cast ballots in the special election.
City Manager Chris Coffman said that city staff will work with the county’s elections administrator and the Secretary of State’s office to schedule the runoff election.
