WALDPORT — Longtime City Council member Greg Holland was elected mayor Tuesday, easily defeating fellow council member Karun Virtue 882 to 379, according to late returns from the Lincoln County elections office.
Holland, a retired attorney from Los Angeles, has lived in Waldport for 15 years and been on the City Council for 12 – but his term is ending in January.
Virtue, who served as a minister for 10 years, has lived in Waldport for four years and had been on the City Council for two years, but had to resign by the end of the year in order to run for mayor.
Voters also elected three members of the City Council from a field of four candidates.
The top vote getter was Greg Dunn, owner of a pest control company, was elected to a second, four-year term with 808 votes.
Heide Lambert, a planning commission member and executive director of CASA in Lincoln and Tillamook counties, also grabbed a council seat with 796. The race for the third and final open seat was too close to call in early returns Tuesday. But after 99 percent of ballots were counted countywide Tuesday night, Jayme Morris, a secretary at Crestview Heights School, appeared to have captured the third seat with 733 votes. Rick Booth, president of the South Lincoln Resources board, had 726.
There was only one candidate seeking to fill Virtue’s two-year term. Jerry Townsend, a retired journalism professor, got 972 votes.
The election winners will be sworn in and take office in January.
