Green-Douglass elected to fill board vacancy

IOWA CITY - Johnson County voters have selected Lisa Green-Douglass to serve on the county Board of Supervisors, maintaining the board's entirely Democratic makeup.

Green-Douglass, who has been active in local politics since 1988, edged out three-term North Liberty City Council member Chris Hoffman, with 2,015 votes to 1,263, respectively.

She wins the seat left vacant by Terrence Neuzil, who resigned last year to take a job in Kalamazoo, Mich.

'I'm thrilled. I'm ready to work hard and serve the people of Johnson County,” Green-Douglass said after the election. 'I'll probably hit the ground at a nice strong pace.”

Hoffman, who ran as a no-party candidate, said he knew going into the election that he faced a challenge. But he added he is encouraged his campaign added to the discussion that the board needs to be nonpartisan.

'I was really blown away by the number of people that were responsive of my effort to do this as a person and not a party,” Hoffman said.

Green-Douglass will hold the supervisor seat until November, when it is up for vote again. Hoffman said he will consider running in that election.

Green-Douglass and Hoffman are North Liberty residents, meaning Tuesday's election was - barring a surprise write-in candidate's victory - destined to provide the county with its first supervisor from that community, according to county records.

'As far as we know, from the research that we've done, it does not appear we've had a supervisor from North Liberty yet,” said Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert.

Low turnout

Voter turnout was low, with only 3,295 total votes cast - or about 3.6 percent of registered voters - by the time polls closed at 9 p.m. About 1,000 of those votes came from absentee ballots.

Weipert attributed low turnout to the cold weather and the lack of a GOP candidate was on the ballot.

Tuesday's turnout was about half the votes cast in the county's last special election to fill a supervisor seat in 2013, when GOP candidate John Etheredge shocked many in the county by defeating Democrat Terry Dahms - making Etheredge the first Republican on the board in about five decades.

Only about 6,100 total votes were cast in that election.