Jenson, Muhlfeld, Friel and McGrew are all winners

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

A narrow race for a third Whitefish City Council has created uncertainty in the city's first-ever all-mail election, but one thing is known — Whitefish will have a new mayor.

Mike Jenson, a Whitefish native and former mayor, won the three-way mayoral race with 1,008 votes. Incumbent mayor Cris Coughlin received 745 votes and councilor Nick Palmer had 93 votes.

In the city council race, where seven candidates vied for three seats, councilor John Muhlfeld easily won with 1,141 votes — the largest number among all the candidates. He was followed by Ryan Friel with 1,003 votes.

A recount on Wednesday after the Pilot went to print came up with an additional 232 ballots. Election officials reported that more than 30 ballots were damaged by the machine that opens ballot envelopes, but more importantly, ballots were jamming in the machine that was initially used to scan the ballots.

Flathead County election manager Monica Eisenzimer said election officials fed the ballots too quickly into the Election Systems and Software model M100 scanner, causing the machine to jam.

On Wednesday, officials ran the ballots two more times through their ESS model 650 scanner, a machine Eisenzimer has more trust in. She said the results came out the same each time, and she is confident in the results.

In the recount, Whitefish City-County Planning Board chairman Martin McGrew narrowly defeated former councilor Turner Askew by a 694-692 vote. Askew was ahead by four votes before the recount.

Other city council candidates included Kent Taylor with 541, John Murdock with 536 votes and Mark McGlenn with 247. All three gained votes in the recount.

Askew has the right to ask for a recount because of the narrow margin of victory for McGrew, but he would have to pay for it. He told the Pilot he participated in a recount at the county election office last year and believed a different number would emerge from a hand count. But by Wednesday, Askew said he hadn't decided whether to request a recount.

Candidates have up to five days after the county commissioners approve the election to request a recount.

Eisenzimer couldn't put a dollar figure on the cost to recount the ballots, but it took about 30 people much of a day to recount last year's Ken Toole-Mike Taylor Public Service Commission race, she said.

County election officials reported 4,357 registered voters in Whitefish, but only 3,910 were active. About 800 of the 3,825 ballots that were mailed out were returned as undeliverable. About 200 ballots were brought to the courthouse in Kalispell from the ballot box at City Hall in Whitefish.

Eisenzimer said 1,854 ballots were counted, giving a 47 percent turnout of active voters. In Kalispell, the election drew a paltry 9 percent turnout.

Pundits had expected a much larger turnout in Whitefish than the 22 percent in the 2005 municipal election because of the mail-in ballots, the large field of candidates and the number of contentious issues facing the city, but ballots trickled in over the three-week voting period.

"I got a lot of support obviously," Jenson told the Pilot late Tuesday night. "It was a great campaign and fair — there wasn't anything out of hand."

Jenson, a ceramic artist since 1972 who left the mayor's office nearly a decade ago, said he felt humbled by the support he garnered.

"People were interested in change, but that's not anything I promoted," he said. "I don't want people to think I'm here for change. I'm here for healing."

Jenson noted that Coughlin also had a lot of support.

"It's my job now to pull it all together again," Jenson said.

Muhlfeld, who pulled in more votes than any other candidate, said he was looking forward to working with everyone.

A hydrologist with a business in Whitefish, Muhlfeld was appointed to the city council in January 2006 after Tom Muri resigned. He has been an active member of the Whitefish Lake and Lakeshore Protection Committee and the Critical Areas Ordinance Committee.

"I'll be looking for common ground and hope to deal with the polarizing issues," he said Tuesday night.

Friel is the only winning candidate who hasn't already been seated at the city council. The son of teachers, Friel grew up in a suburb of Boston. He received a bachelor's in government in 1993 from Colby College in Maine and has been working as a fishing guide.

Tuesday night, he stood on a bench at the Great Northern Saloon and presented a bouquet of flowers to Lisa Jones, who he credited with helping him win.

"I'm looking forward to working on the council," he said. "I presented myself in an honest fashion, and the people believed in me."

McGrew moved to the Flathead in 1994 and to Whitefish two years later. He has a bachelor's from Oklahoma State University and a background in real estate. He currently works in the mortgage business.

With his term on the planning board expiring this year, where he currently serves as chairman, McGrew said he decided to run for city council because he was ready to move up to the next level of community service.

McGrew had praise for the Whitefish city election.

"This is part of the best democratic process Whitefish has ever seen," he said. "This is the best voter turnout of past council elections, and that's more important than who got elected."

For Coughlin, who was appointed mayor this year by the rest of the council after Andy Feury resigned to work in China, the loss means she will no longer sit on the council next year. She said she has no plans for running again.

"My congratulations to Mike Jenson," she said. "I thank all the folks who supported me through this. The good news is the people of Whitefish truly care about their community, and it shows. The bright side for me is that I won't be attending meetings for the next four years."