Councilman Fronabarger loses seat to challenger, Harvey and Bradshaw are re-elected

Carbondale+City+Hall+%28Jacob+Wiegand+%7C+%40jawiegandphoto%29

Carbondale City Hall (Jacob Wiegand | @jawiegandphoto)

By Daily Egyptian staff

Two of three incumbents on the Carbondale City Council were re-elected Tuesday and the only outside candidate was voted in to replace Councilman Lee Fronabarger.

Jeff Doherty appears to have narrowly beat Fronabarger to join the city’s governing after a 10-year hiatus from city government. Jackson County election results show Doherty led Fronabarger by less than 50 votes.

Councilwomen Carolin Harvey and Jessica Bradshaw were re-elected to serve another four years.

Advertisement

Doherty worked with the city for 32 years in various positions, including as city manager from 1991 to 2007.  A resident of the city for nearly 45 years, Doherty said in an earlier interview he hoped to return to the council after the decade-long hiatus to bring his experience in financing, budgeting and running capital projects.

Fronabarger was first appointed to the council in 2011. He previously worked on the city’s planning commission for five years.

Nearly 4,000 ballots were cast in this year’s election, a decrease of about 37 percent from the last election in 2015. Seven candidates ran for three seats on the council that year, and Mayor John “Mike” Henry beat Jane Adams, the sole challenger in the mayoral race, with 62 percent of the vote.

Harvey won the most votes of the four candidates, followed by Bradshaw. Harvey was first elected in 2013. She has resided in Carbondale for 46 years and spent more than 38 years working at SIUC in various administrative offices.

Bradshaw, a Carbondale native, was also elected in 2013 and works for the university as an office administrator in the electrical and computer engineering department. She is a former human relations commission chair and has participated in numerous community groups such as Nonviolent Carbondale, Neighborhood Associations and Carbondale Main Street.

The Daily Egyptian’s campus desk can be reached at 618-536-3397 or [email protected].

To stay up to date with all your SIU news, follow the Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Twitter.

Advertisement*

Advertisement