It was a night for incumbents in South Milwaukee.
No challengers — write-in or otherwise — were able to unseat sitting local leaders in the administration, on the City Council or on the South Milwaukee School Board.
Here are the local results:
- South Milwaukee Mayor Tom Zepecki easily won a fourth term, beating write-in candidates Michael Moeller and Todd Lorino. Zepecki had 78% of the vote to Lorino’s 18.4% and Moeller’s 1.8%.
- In the First District, incumbent Alderman Frank Van Dusen III cruised past Moeller, also running as a write-in for that seat, 95.1% to 3.8%.
- Other local offices were uncontested, with City Clerk Jim Shelenske, City Treasurer Karen Skowronski, City Attorney Joseph Murphy and Municipal Judge Bill Fenger all winning re-election.
- On the South Milwaukee School Board, incumbents David Maass (38.9%) and Kathleen Molus (32.8%) won re-election, with challenger Sophia Williams coming in third (28.3%).
Also winning re-election was County Supervisor Pat Jursik, who was running unopposed. In the locally contested Milwaukee County court races, Carolina Stark and Lindsey Grady won large majorities in South Milwaukee.
See all local results in this PDF document … and post your comments below!
(See a post on Republican presidential primary results here.)
South Milwaukee Blog 
I am a bit surprised by the results of the 1st district. I thought Todd Lorino would have done better as a person who was very obviously running just to oppose Walmart. He pushed pretty hard in the 1st district and still got smoked (although he did jump in very late). Makes me wonder if even the majority in that district (the district which will be most affected by any negative side effects) supports Walmart.
My analysis (for the mayoral race):
Of the votes for mayor, Lorino got nearly 20%. As a candidate running on the anti-Walmart issue (his main stance), that more-or-less equates to at very least 20% of mayoral voters agreeing that Walmart should stay out.
Of the roughly 80% that voted for Zepecki, I’d imagine that some were against Walmart, may not have known of Lorino or still went with Zepecki anyways. I’d also wager that the majority don’t know or don’t care about the Walmart situation (it is only one issue).
I, for one, don’t really care if a majority in a district or in the city as a whole are against the Walmart. The majority tend to be uninformed about issues. Unfortunately, it IS the job of the voters to be informed about issues, but, especially in the current times, most have neither the time, effort, or concern to be informed on the issues.
Here’s a nice quote from James Madison:
“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority”
and a bit of a longer one by Thomas Jefferson:
“…the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
likely, more to come…
By your logic, of the 80% that did vote for Zepecki I’d imagine that some are against Walmart and didn’t think that Lorino was qualified to deal with any issue other than Walmart, it really is only one thing the mayor is responsible for.
I also agree that people need to be informed and that elections have consequences, that is why we put people in office that agree with our general philosophies. With that said though I think people running for office have a bigger responsibility to get their believes out so people can make an informed vote. I don’t think ANYONE did that this election. The only flyer I got was from a person who was trying to get signatures for a petition. This person wasn’t even honest about why they were doing that. I will also state that same flyer while it talked about Lorino and his fiscal beliefs didn’t say anything about his thoughts on Walmart. That same person was the only person who knocked on my door.
I also think that your statement about the minority is correct when it is dealing with social issues (feeding the hungry/healthcare/etc.), to say that the majority shouldn’t progress because the minority (who bought a house in the vicinity of an ugly industrial area) don’t want to deal with traffic issues. Lets be honest, that area was never intended to be a park. It was always for industrial/commercial development and nothing Walmart can bring can be as ugly as what it has been for the past 75 years or so. I don’t think it is fair to criticize the uneducated voter and defend the naive home buyer in the same statement.