The results are in, and so is the referendum!

Brown County voted Yes (54.75 percent) for the Brown County Schools to increase property taxes paid to schools by homeowners and businesses for eight years to fund the Taxpayer Investment Plan, which will include providing for teacher and staff salaries, benefits and programs and funding the Career Resource Center.

“Our vision is not to just stand still or maintain, we want to continue to grow our quality of education, continue to provide those world-class learning opportunities to our students that are unique to our small community and we’re going to be able to do that,” said Emily Tracy, Brown County Schools Superintendent.

“I’m just really excited about the future. And the best part is whether win or lose tonight, we would have moved forward regardless. But knowing the Brown County community supports our mission, our educators and our students, oh my gosh, it gives us that much more energy to move forward.”

A total of 4,109 ballots were cast out of 13,245 registered voters. Republicans dominated numbers with 3,046 ballots compared to 908 from the Democrats.

Republican incumbents returning to office are Mary Wertz (2,473 votes) for judge, Andy Bond (2,276 votes) for Treasurer, Mark Bowman (183 votes) for Precinct Committeeman Hamblen 2, Phil Stephens (182 votes) for Hamblen 3, Deborah Biddle (94) votes for Jackson 2, Duane Parsons (146 votes) for Jackson 3, Larry Gardner (105 votes) for Jackson 4, Jim Kemp (264 votes) for Van Buren 1, and Theresa Cobian (191 votes) for Washington 2.

For County Council at large, Republican Scott Rudd had 27.91 percent votes, Judith Swift Pwdrill had 24.05 percent and Patrick Nielander had 17.29 percent beating out Diana Biddle (16.06 percent) and Michael Magner (14.68 percent).

In the county-contested races, Mary Smith beat Sandra Pool 51 percent to 49 percent for recorder. Republican party Tim Allen edged out Aaron Harden 57.92 percent to 42.08 percent for surveyor while the Democrat party contester was David Harden at 778 votes. Tim Clark beat out Jerry Pittman 51.65 percent to 48.35 percent for the Republican County Commissioner District 3. Justin Schwenk won the Democrat nod with 770 votes for District 3.

Ted Adams beat Michael Magner (21.14 percent) and Joy Martin (24.47 percent) with 54.39 percent for Precinct Committeeman for Washington 1. Charles Shaw beat Cindy Wolpert 55.04 percent to 44.96 percent for Precinct Committeeman for Hamblen 1. Republican county commissioner for District 1 was Kevin Patrick with 2,291 votes, and Democrat was Tiffany Arndt with 760 votes.

The six Republican candidates for State Convention Delegates at large were Ted Adams (15.25 percent), Kevin Patrick (12.38 percent), Pearletta Banks (10.23 percent), Mark Bowman (10.05 percent), Ben Phillips (9.55 percent) and Joy Martin (8.66 percent). Jim Oliver was the only Democratic candidate with 815 votes.

First-term County Clerk Pearletta Banks said for her first election, everything went well aside from a few glitches with operator error. She said the total ballots were only a little over 4,000 and there are a lot more registered voters in the county than that.

“For a presidential election and my first time as County Clerk, I’m going to say I’m a little disappointed at the turnout,” said Banks. “I really expected more.”