Brian Schoenhals/The Daily Home
Mayor-elect Larry Barton, center, is pictured holding a glass of milk, while looking over election results with his wife, Mary, left, and son, Delane, Tuesday night at Stampede Steakhouse.
Barton won Tuesday night’s run-off election by 1,500 votes to former Revenue Commissioner Harvey Bowlin’s 1,339, or with 52.84 percent of the vote.
Once again, as during the past several election cycles, absentee ballots were crucial. In the mayor’s race, Barton won 227 absentee ballots to Bowlin’s 48.
Incumbent Horace Patterson defeated challenger Katie Reynolds by 333 votes or 55.49 percent, to 266 or 44.41 percent. Patterson had 105 absentee ballots as opposed to 32 for Reynolds.
Incumbent Councilman Eddie Tucker also dominated the absentee ballots in Ward 2, but to no avail. Challenger Jarvis Elston carried the day with a total of 294 votes to Tucker’s 261, or 52.97 percent of the vote.
Tucker won 102 absentee ballots to Elston’s 17.
The remaining three City Council seats and all of the city Board of Education seats were resolved following the general election in August.
Barton said, “I want to thank my family, my wife and my son, Benny and Charlotte Green and all my campaign workers. Connie Bloodworth, and there are others, but I will never be able to think of all of them. But mostly I want to thank the voters who had enough faith in me to give me a second chance. It’s been a long journey. But I believe this is a good council that cares about the future of Talladega and I’m looking forward to working with them.”
As for changes in the role of mayor since he last held office, Barton said, “I know the mayor’s authority is diminished, but I am planning to get with the League of Municipalities and learn exactly where that line is. I plan on staying on that side of the line. But there’s still a lot of work to do, we need jobs, we need industry.”
”Also,” Barton added, “I want to thank The Daily Home for letting us and all the other candidates run their campaigns and letting the people decide.”
Following the announcement of the final tally, Patterson said, “I would like to thank the amazing citizens of Ward 1 who have supported me across the years, and in this especially difficult campaign. This election I was amazed by some of the opposition. But the people of Ward 1 committed and stood together. This is not so much a win for me as for Ward 1 and the wonderful people that I have been privileged to serve there for more than 20 years. I am excited, energized and very, very thankful of all of the hard work and sacrifice people have put in.”
Elston declined to comment Tuesday night, but said he would give a longer statement at a later date.
Contact Chris Norwood at cnorwood@dailyhome.com.
