Pocatello City Council seats filled
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - UPDATE: Pocatello City Council seats 1, 2 and 3 are now filled.
Hayden Paulsen won seat 1 with 46% of the vote, Brent Nichols won 59% of the vote and Corey Mangum won 70% of the vote.
Pocatello City Council Seat 1
- HAYDEN PAULSEN 3,888 - 46%
- RAINBOW MALDONADO 2,277 - 27%
- STEVEN CONTRERAS 1,523 - 18%
- JAMES BUCCI 587 - 7%
- CARTA SIERRA17 1 - 2%
Pocatello City Council Seat 2
- BRENT NICHOLS 4,815 - 59%
- CRAIG YADON 3,365 - 41%
Pocatello City Council Seat 3
- COREY MANGUM 5,690 - 70%
- GARY EKIZIAN 2,386 - 30%
You can view more election results HERE.
ORIGINAL: People have been coming in and out of Holt Arena to vote since 8 a.m. casting their vote to determine the future for Pocatello and Bannock County.
Now, the race that is on everyone's minds is the race to be on the Pocatello City Council, with seats one two and three all up for election.
Seats two and three are between two candidates, with seat two a race between the incumbent Brent Nichols and his challenger Stephen Craig Yadon and seat three is a race between the incumbent Corey Mangum and his challenger Gary Ekizian.
Seat one though is a different story.
After Scott Marchand decided not run for his seat back, there were five candidates who decided to run.
They are James Bucci, Rainbow Maldonado, Steven Contreras, Hayden Paulsen and Carta Sierra also known as Idaho Law.
We spoke with all five candidates Tuesday to get their perspective on why they are running for office.
"I ran for city council because I love the city. This is an amazing place with amazing people. I love the environment around here. Downtown is amazing. It's a great place. And what I'm seeing is we're kind of building it up as we have before and we need to make change and I believe I can bring that to the city," Bucci said.
"In the immediate range in getting into that seat, I think is learning and talking to people, working with the people in the city. There's between 500 to 700 employees and finding out they're the experts within their fields, talking to them, seeing what their objectives are, what are their needs, and really working with the current city council and the mayor are my immediate goals for city council," Maldonado said.
"I'm running for city council because I think I can make a big difference. I think I can make a difference in road improvement, improvement in senior citizen programs, improvement in veteran programs. Also, most importantly, I think I can make a difference in improving the relationship with the city councilmen as well as with the mayor," Contreras said.
"One of the biggest things that I'd like to address is the issue of housing in this community. I know it's very nuanced. I know it can't happen immediately, but I really would like to emphasize that to make sure our fixed income seniors, our lower income families and young families who want to stay here can stay here," Paulsen said.
"I've been running for office here. I've been active in city. I've been active in the legal department here and past and present and basically, we're out to arrest and prosecute them of heinous crimes, murder, criminal abuse, neglect, endangerment, misprision of felony. These are serious crimes and they shouldn't be in office engaging in it any more without being prosecuted to the max," Sierra said.
The other item in the ballot that draws attention is the approval of a $45 million bond for Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25.
The main goal of the bond is to help renovate Highland High School after the devastating fire that damaged the school back in April.
The bond also included making improvements to the gym facility at Century High School.
