2014 a look back: Busy election season nets few changes

Posted 12/31/14

In August’s Republican primary election, Rep. Dave Blevins, R-Powell, was ousted by Dan Laursen and Park County Clerk Jerri Torczon was beaten by challenger Colleen Renner in a three-way race.

Park County Sheriff Scott Steward, meanwhile, …

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2014 a look back: Busy election season nets few changes

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Local voters didn’t clean house in 2014, but they made a few notable changes.

In August’s Republican primary election, Rep. Dave Blevins, R-Powell, was ousted by Dan Laursen and Park County Clerk Jerri Torczon was beaten by challenger Colleen Renner in a three-way race.

Park County Sheriff Scott Steward, meanwhile, fended off two Republican challengers, sheriff’s Deputy Bruce Olson and former Deputy Roger Dunn, and voters similarly chose to stick with Park County Commission incumbents Loren Grosskopf, Joe Tilden and Tim French instead of five challengers.

In November’s general election, voters returned Tim Sapp — who decided at the last minute to enter the race — to the Powell City Council instead of re-electing incumbent Ward 3 Councilman Myron Heny.

Local Democrats fielded no candidates in the county’s partisan races. That — combined with generally low interest in the Powell area’s school board, city council and other non-partisan races — made for a mostly uncontested general election at the local level. Voters were similarly uninterested: the last time so few Park County residents cast ballots in a general election was in 1990.

The Park County Republican Party was roiled by internal fighting earlier in the year as more conservative and more moderate factions of the party sparred.

Most notably, some more conservative members unsuccessfully tried to censure State Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, in March; their discontent stemmed mostly from Coe’s leading role in trying to transfer nearly all of the powers held by Wyoming’s elected superintendent of public instruction’s to an education director appointed by the governor.

County Republicans elected a number of new party leaders, known as precinct committee members, in August’s primary election.

Editor's note: This version of the story removes an incorrect sentence that (mis)stated committee leaders weren't taking their positions until 2015; they actually assumed the spots after the primary election. This version also clarifies that the party leaders referred to in the story are precinct committee people.

— CJ Baker

See the today's edition of the Powell Tribune to take a look back at some of the other major stories of 2014.

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